The earth is parched. The orchards are a cemetery of vertical wood, without hope. The roots of an impressive tree heritage are about to give up. From the Torpè valley to Posada, passing through Siniscola and Budoni, surrender seems imminent. The shriveled leaves of the expanses of orchards break with the passage of every wind that overlooks this land still marked by a violent flood imprinted in the memory. Eleven years have passed since that rampage of water without banks. A devastation that killed and marked, without a reason. That bed of the Rio Posada is now a path of smooth stones and gravel beaches. That stream that flows downstream of the most cursed dam on the island, the Maccheronis valley reservoir, stopped long before the last bridge that cuts that watercourse from above.

They scream drought

Here, almost everyone has been crying out about drought for months. One could say that all that is missing are the saving prayers and the rain dance, for the rest not even a concrete intervention appears on the horizon. The "fashion" of the water emergency format Baronia now tells of the announced "miracle" of watermakers, the new old and ancient frontier of sea water transformed into "mineral", theoretically drinkable, with which to practice gargling with fresh goodness .

Abbanoa & Acciona

The game is always managed by the same people: on one side Abbanoa, theoretically the Region's in-house company, and on the other the Spaniards of Acciona, the " matadores " of the Sardinians' public water supply. The water company has also published an exploratory tender, the results, however, are still locked up in the Water Palace. There is talk of renting a watermaker, costing over a million euros. Certainly with exorbitant management costs, without any certainty of the result, given that perhaps it will be discussed on the eve of August. In the meantime, in the tourist villages, already overflowing with foreigners, they continue to receive all the water they need, that of the Maccheronis dam, precisely what many describe as a puddle now at its last gurgle.

The engineer's video

All this until the Engineer's video complaint breaks into the Barony's chat messages. He, Gianfranco Dalu, born in 1957, has always been the "lord of the water" for everyone here. The man who has always been in the trenches, from Govossai to Abbanoa, with the process of water governance, marked by top roles in any role entrusted to him, from the direct management of the safety of the reservoir system of the Govossai Consortium, up to the role of top in the government of water purification plants and purifiers on the island. Gruff, frank, introverted with his enemies, affable with those who respect him. The appointment is in Talavà, a hamlet of Torpè, close to the Maccheronis dam. He lives here. Breathe the anxiety of the earth, touch the pain of those who are losing the sacrifices of a lifetime in an instant. He has been retired for a few years.

The call of drought

The call of the advancing drought, however, forced him to turn the computer back on, to think about the maps, about the possible connections, from those between the water purification plants in the north of the island, to the pipelines to systematize the raw water basins. He reasoned, out of emergency and passion, until he decided to climb the hairpin bends towards the dam, the one that has always fed district 5, that of the Barony.

Doubts and the specter

He had no reason to doubt the information that was circulating everywhere: the dam is empty, a puddle of five million cubic meters of water and mud. When he reaches the height of the barrier it is late afternoon. To him, however, on that stage, the dam worn out by mud and murky water does not even appear in the distance.

No “eye gauge”

He is an expert, but he is aware that the water resource stored in a dam cannot be measured with an "eyemeter". He, however, knows what and where to aim for, just to have an initial answer to his questions, to those doubts that shatter the certainties "sprayed" liberally in recent months. The gaze is directed towards the dam, to that "crowning" which overlooks the highest level of the reservoir water.

Error or worse

It is there that we understand whether the dam is empty, half-empty or half-full. That rumor that spread from one part of the country to another as a "justification" for shutting off water to farmers, first of all to those with tree crops, orchards and olive groves, now seems to be just a specter in his eyes, the son of a mistake, if not worse. In an instant he had to dust off diagrams, reservoir curves, ask himself what was happening in that dam with a potential capacity of 25 million cubic meters of water, where, instead, the official "verdicts" recorded just 5 million cubic meters of water available. The engineer returns to it two or three times. Each time with a different technical guide. The data does not change.

The last relief

Yesterday morning, 36 degrees in the shade, the walk towards that bank of water on the edge of the reservoir is the showdown, the last comparison between the specter of the disaster and the real data of the reservoir. In front of cameras and drones, the measurement of reservoir levels is entrusted to GPS, technicians and precision measurers capable of computer-recording elevations and coordinates. Every meter on the shore a georeferenced "beat". The instrument records and collects data to re-elaborate the final curve, the one we publish on this page.

15 million cubic meters

Certified test complete with final diagram, accompanied by the latest study on the reservoir, drawn up by the Region under the aegis of the University of Cagliari, Department of Hydraulics. The findings are those developed for the safety of the dam: in the Maccheronis reservoir, at an altitude of 38 meters above sea level, the one found yesterday, correspond to fifteen million cubic meters stored, triple compared to the five officially declared. The relief is all too clear: the maximum reservoir level in the dam is marked at an altitude of 45.6 meters above sea level. When the water reaches that point it means that 24.9 million cubic meters have been stored. The current level, the one where the water reaches the dam, has a certified height of 38,190 metres. The “delta”, the gap between the maximum level and the current one, is 7.41 metres. The water man writes it, dictates it, repeats it: " in Lake Maccheronis there is three times more water than what the official data as of 20 July 2024 indicate in 5 million cubic meters stored ".

Business drought?

Gianfranco Dalu, the engineer who everyone here now sees as a hope, does not want to accuse anyone: «Whatever the reason for this "mistake", it must be remedied immediately. It is necessary to make a timely management plan for the truly available resource. Water exists to save not only tourism, but also animals and tree crops. We just need to hurry." He doesn't say more, he maintains the delivery of the proactive profile, but it's clear that in that bag full of documents there are burning dossiers. There is that water purification plant built after 17 years of delays, and never put into operation, watermakers that are very expensive for the public and useless for the emergency that they would like to put into operation in 15 days, there is a water emergency that in reality here, in Barony, it has become ordinary. It seems that drought is convenient, almost a business.

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