The skyline of Monte Linas sees the horizon of the "Shadow Country" violated as never before by the wind turbines that stand out against the sky of Villacidro like a steel forest with no future. Rich land, luxuriant fields bathed by the Rio Leni which in winter becomes an impetuous stream of water to feed the island's finest citrus fruits. The smokestack of the San Gavino foundry contends for the primacy of the clouds with the disused ones of the state petrochemical which in that plain, snatched from agricultural fields, stopped producing when the nineties had not yet crossed the last decade of the last century.

In the middle ground

Yet in this middle ground, in the agricultural Campidano, a silent threat has long been facing, passed off as a "fertilizer" miracle for the countryside that stretches out at the foot of that mountain that separates olive and citrus groves from the jagged green coast. The data sometimes speaks louder than any comment. They are like a plow in those expanses of land: they leave deep furrows and unearth a truth that for too long has remained immersed in the drawers of a bureaucracy that does not control and if anything turns its attention elsewhere. The phenomenon that in recent years has been affecting these lands, in carelessness or irresponsibility, is the so-called reuse of sewage sludge in agricultural fields. An increasingly widespread and increasingly uncontrolled practice, left at the mercy of those who manage this market, with increasingly less clear laws and never certain interpretations. Chemical analyzes entrusted to those who produce those sludges and to those who throw them into agricultural lands.

Analysis & verb

The public, the state and regional ones, is limited to a few spot samples, limiting themselves to acquiring the manager's "verb". Then nothing more. It doesn't matter if those soils have reached the right chemical-physical balance, if the organoleptic qualities of those products are an exclusive Dop-branded good. Little is worried about the water tables ready to distribute those sewage substances captured by the violated ground everywhere. When you meet the interest in disposing of those sewage sludge without wasting too much time, at no cost, and the interest in “pumping” agricultural production to the maximum, the game is done. In theory, those who manage those sludge, on behalf of a public company, Abbanoa, earn a lot, and those who receive them in their own lands earn nothing. One fact, however, is certain: after all, only a few know what is really inside that mud. Moreover, the regulations in force, which are increasingly permissive, do not provide for a broad spectrum analysis. As if the state, even knowing of the danger, prefers not to know. The Minister of Ecological Transition, in recent days, suddenly caught by an insidious microphone, declared that the law must change, but you know, from words to deeds there is a mountain of interests involved. As many as have caused the sewage discharges in the fields of Sardinia to rise to the point of doubling the quantity of purification waste in the last 15 years. We have gone from 7,000 tons of sludge spilled on the agricultural lands of the island in 2005 to almost 14,000 in 2019. An exponential growth for which triumphant words were not lacking, as if filling the agricultural fields with that material was a conquest of civilization.

The doubling

The same goes for the land affected by this escalation: in 2005 1,378 agricultural hectares were used to pour that sludge, in 2019 the double, 2,639 hectares. A phenomenon, therefore, which not only should not be underestimated, but which must make us reflect in terms of the future and conscience. To all this, we must add that this sewage weight is concentrated in very few areas, in the palm of the hand of municipalities that "grab" themselves a quantity of record-breaking sludge. Not exactly a vocation that of the Medio Campidano to receive such an abnormal quantity of these muds. Certainly not a free crop choice, but rather a choice that all falls on the principle of maximum profit with minimum effort. The company that manages these muds is right there, in the connection road between Villacidro, San Gavino and Sanluri. What better economic result than spreading that sludge while saving even in the choice of the land closest to the plant? Little fuel, little time, everything at your fingertips.

Less expense, more income

The data that sees San Gavino as the first Sardinian municipality for the unloading of those “idyllic” muds in the agricultural lands circumscribed in that municipality cannot be explained otherwise. The analysis just published by the Region is straightforward: "The Municipality of San Gavino occupies first place both in terms of quantities conferred, with more than 3,600 tons, and in terms of area concerned, with 576 hectares". A very significant quantity all concentrated in the middle way between Sanluri, headquarters of the company that manages those muds on behalf of Abbanoa and the Spaniards, and the municipality of Villacidro. If we exclude Sassari, the second municipality in the ranking of agricultural reuse of that material, with more than 3,400 tons on 467 hectares, the second municipal area dedicated to the use of that wastewater is precisely the country of shadows, Villacidro, which on an area of almost 2,200 hectares, in 2019 alone, almost 450 tons of sludge were poured into those lands. The data of Medio Campidano, of only 4 municipalities falling within the narrowest area of the storage facility for those sludge, is by itself impressive. The municipalities of San Gavino, Villacidro, Gonnosfanadiga and Guspini alone account for 50% of the entire agricultural sludge discharge in Sardinia. Without going too far, within a radius of a few kilometers, Villacidro and San Gavino reach almost 6,000 tons of wastewater discharged into agricultural land, well over the thousand hectares involved in these operations. The municipalities of Uta and Ozieri follow in terms of spreading area, both with 160 hectares, but the first reaches over 890 tons of sludge while the second reaches the considerable threshold of 640. If the first five municipalities in the ranking (in the table on the side ) is added Solarussa, sixth municipality both for surface and for scattered quantities, it touches on 75% of the Sardinian agricultural area affected by the agricultural overthrow of the sludge. With the remaining nine municipalities that exceed 100 hectares, 88% of the area concerned is covered. If we analyze the 7 municipalities that exceed 500 tons spilled, we are close to 86% of the total conferred.

The randomness

The data is all too evident: the maximum economic profit is reached by using the land closest to the plant. Not a careful geological analysis, of the chemical-physical values of the soils, of the pH gradients, but rather a "casual" correspondence of these practices right in the vicinity of the plant. The geographical spectrum, however, also shifts to other fronts. With more than 100 hectares involved, there are the municipalities of Siliqua, Decimomannu and Siamaggiore. Vallermosa, Guspini, Gonnosfanadiga and Tula also exceed 100 tons. A map also exists regarding the crops affected by these sewage sludge spills.

Forage

Compared to the last census, there has been a further increase in those land destined for fodder crops, going from 70% of reused sludge in 2018 to 80% in 2019. A concentration on livestock feed that is making the use of this material cease in orchards and olive groves. A clear symptom that fine agriculture is not yielding to the "lavish" magnificence declaimed for so much sewage waste. The food chain of fodder crops, directly connected with the livestock sector, is no less delicate. An overall picture that allows us to understand the delicacy of the issue and the absence of a real preventive action capable of avoiding risks both for the environment and for health. Risks sanctioned and reaffirmed by the sentence, without appeal, of the Council of State on Sardinia. More than a final decision a tombstone on the posthumous approximation in the treatment of these sewage sludges. In April last year, without fanfare, the high administrative court ruled precisely on the management of the sludge by the same monopoly company that manages the Abbanoa wastewater on behalf of the Spaniards, winners of the mega contract of the public company delegated to the government of water. The judges were adamant: "the use of sludge in agriculture and that relating to waste, aimed at the broadest protection of the environment, inevitably implies an accurate analytical investigation that excludes the risk of contamination of the environmental matrices, and in particular of the soils , and check if the latter are not already, in turn, characterized by relevant contaminations ».

Dorgali's opposition

The province of Nuoro and the municipality of Dorgali opposed the discharge of the wastewater from the Ottana treatment plant: their ban on the use of that sewage sludge had been clear. Arpas had claimed that those wastewater were a "possible source of pollution" of the sludge coming from the Ottana treatment plant. The provision of the province was without appeal: bans on the use in agriculture of the sludge coming from the purification plant managed by it up to the reclamation of the area potentially contaminated by the paraxylene spill and the waste deriving from the reclamation operations had been correctly disposed of, as well as of treatment in the treatment plant of unauthorized waste. The Sanluri company refused to give up unloading even those sludge in the agricultural land of Dorgali and resorted to the TAR to reject that prohibition. In the first instance, the administrative court agreed with him. The Council of State, on the other hand, in recent months has overturned that sentence: "The Board believes that, with reference to the case in question, it is necessary to follow up the policy of this Council which ascribes to the" anticipatory "scope of the environmental precautionary principle" .

Risks and dangers

As if to say, any environmental damage must be prevented with precise and in-depth analyzes, even beyond the legislative provisions, avoiding the irreparable. And it is the Council of State, in the same Sardinian sentence, that marks another juridical pillar, still ignored on the island: it is absolutely legitimate, as the Province of Nuoro has done, to take any preventive action "in relation to an potentially dangerous, suitable for determining risks that are not the subject of certain knowledge, including the hypothesis of damage that is little known or only potential ". A judicial confrontation that has made the farsighted logic of prevention prevail, to be placed before a potentially dangerous activity, as has been seen several times in judicial inquiries. A protection to be placed above any other economic interest. But you know, millionaire deals revolve on sewage sludge, all still to be revealed.

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