The archaeological sign has been burning with time. The impetuous sun that has always reverberated like a mirror on those sand mountains has made it almost illegible, as if here the passing of days and the wind had swept away the monuments and constraints of this ancient land of mines. The railway track, that of the wagons loaded with blende and galena that have furrowed junipers and ravines for centuries, up to the ancient warehouse positioned almost on the seashore, marks the derailment of the miners' civilization, those of Ingurtosu and Montevecchio. Impervious and exclusive coast, close to the waves that break on the Costa Verde, territory of Arbus, on the border with Guspini and Buggerru. Here, in this earthly paradise, unrepeatable and untouched, marked by the footprints of deer that scurry unchallenged from the peaks of rock to those of sand, time has stopped, inexorably.

The Colonel's Dream

The Colonel, as he is still called here, tried to save the ancient mining civilization from decay in the early 90s. Sergio Caroli, son of the last director of the most architecturally elegant mine of all, that of Ingurtosu, had glimpsed before others the dream of transforming those ancient mining vestiges into an oasis of exclusive tourism, in the heart of the tunnels of the past. That old warehouse, all stones and arches, set close to the surf on that endless beach of Piscinas, had been miraculously saved from the passing of time. Transformed with rare skill into a real hotel, all charm and relaxation, keeping intact the stone galleries, the juniper beams, the slate floors, the roofs with gentle slopes, almost following the light ones of the dunes.

Gone the hotel

Now, of that "Monument", declared as such with a lot of decree of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage of 1984, there is little or nothing left. There is no longer the hotel and there is no longer even that property protected by imposing protection restrictions, similar to those of the Colosseum. The greed of business that annihilates identity and landscape, history and culture, have razed that mining asset to the ground, which remained monumental only in the papers and in that sign still positioned at the entrance. Arriving in Piscinas, after having crossed the arch of the Castle of Ingurtosu, is like entering on tiptoe into a world that no longer exists, whose symbols fall apart, day after day, without anyone stopping the march. weather. Reaching those mountains of golden sand, unique of this size in the Mediterranean, set like diamonds in the bowels of the earth, is like touching the final destination of a story steeped in nature and mines, environment and secret charm. What was the hotel "Le Dune", capable for thirty years of attracting writers and poets, artists, women and men of culture, and marking the highest point of the conversion of that good of God into historical and tourist heritage, is now clumsily wrapped in weird nets and tattered sheets, pierced by the gusts of wind and sand that here chisel the landscape like an ever-agitated sculpture. There is the sign of the Franceschini Ministry, more rust than splendor, and there is that of a construction site that started badly and ended worse. From the Colonel to the new messiah of the dunes, the was director of the real estate assets of the most powerful social security institution, that of doctors, a certain Luigi Antonio Caccamo, the more than short step proved to be a real leap into the abyss. The streets of the gentleman, that of the real estate of the doctors of Italy, born in Messina but Calabrian of origin, and the mega funding, over six million euros, of Invitalia, the agency that belonged to Domenico Arcuri, the famous commissioner for masks in the time of Covid, also from Calabria, have opened the breach to a disruption of that mining asset that has become a heap of rubble and abandonment. In the sign of the works, posted at the entrance to the construction site, the end was not indicated. A clumsy foreboding. A few days ago, the Sardinian TAR, with a truth ruling, uncovered the "scar" that an investigation by our newspaper had documented in April last year, forcing all entities, Superintendence first, to reopen the "Piscinas - le Dunes. Behind the scenes, the minutes, the revoked authorizations emerge with a sentence of the Judges of the Regional Administrative Court that leaves no way out for bureaucratic interpretations. The togates are clear. The following are explicit on the decision of the State bodies to revoke the authorizations already granted: "The fact that the Superintendency has started the procedure for annulment in self-defense of the previous favorable opinion following the publication of some press articles in which doubts were raised about the regularity of the work in progress in the structure ». In practice, the administrative magistrates reject the accusations of the Caccamo company, "Le Dune Services srl", on the decision of the Superintendency to revoke those authorizations following the investigation of our newspaper. According to the President of the TAR, Dante D'Alessio, the Extending Judge Tito Aru and the Judge Councilor Oscar Marongiu "in the face of such news, the subsequent investigations carried out by the Superintendency of Cagliari are rather obligatory". A sentence, however, which opens a much more relevant chapter, which goes well beyond the decision of the Superintendency to block the works relating to the construction of new parts of the building, all declared by Caccamo, a strange case, to be fundamental for making the hotel work. The Judges of the Tar, in fact, do not miss an opportunity to reiterate, in the body of the sentence and in the same device, a concept marked by the force of the laws and the imposing law: "The Superintendency, having found, following the aforementioned inspection in the construction site area, which the works in progress and those still to be performed, object of the procedure at the Suape of the Municipality of Arbus, could cause serious damage to the protected area with the aforementioned strict restrictions of immutability, therefore considered, in exercise of his powers, to inhibit any further compromise of the protected area and therefore canceled in self-defense also the act by which, evidently on the basis of a different representation of reality, he had previously considered that the works could be carried out ( albeit with the prescriptions imposed by the Region) ".

Unchangeability

Three key concepts: serious damage in works in progress and to be performed, risk of further compromise of the protected area, strict restrictions of immutability. Passages that mark a decisive chapter of the story: the distortion of the historical and monumental structure is ascertained, both by the Superintendency and by the judges of the Tar. The administrative judicial procedure, for the moment, has only dealt with the planned new works and the blocking of the works decided by the Superintendency. Around the corner, however, loom the position of the Region, which strangely first denied the authorization and, then, instead, granted it and that of the Public Prosecutor of Cagliari which has certainly opened a file on the matter for some time. And it is always the judges of the TAR who broaden the value and merit of the decision: "On the merits of the question, it has already been recalled that the works for which it is the cause (and also those subject to previous authorizations) affect an area of maximum importance of the coastal strip of Sardinia which is indeed protected under multiple historical-monumental, landscape and environmental protection profiles that have been mentioned ».

Dossier in the Public Prosecutor's Office

The Superintendency has revoked part of the authorizations in the self-defense, the Region, for now, is silent on the whole front. The regional departments, Urban Planning and Environment, did not appear in the judgment before the TAR, but now, after the sentence, it will not be easy to continue to ignore those blatant violations. One thing is certain: that "Monument" has been turned upside down. According to the Judges, the "immutability" of a historic asset, protected with the highest degree of protection, was violated, as if it were a Colosseum among the mines. The “Dune di Piscinas” dossier is now in the hands of the Public Prosecutor of Cagliari.

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