The alarm is without appeal: immediately stop the discharge of sewage sludge in agricultural fields. This was written in no uncertain terms by 36 senators of the mixed group, including former Ministers of the 5 stars and of Forza Italia, Barbara Lezzi and Paolo Romani among the signatories, who have just filed a motion in the Senate that does not admit wasting time. The risk, according to the senators, is the "Genoa decree" which for parliamentarians has introduced rules that "allow greater soil intoxication".

Danger of poisons

The act ends up under accusation the rule that "allows the heavy hydrocarbons C10-C40 to be increased from 50 to 1,000 milligrams per kilo in those sludges". The picture described in the parliamentary act is devastating: "The increase in hydrocarbon limits, introduced with the aforementioned Genoa decree of 2018, is 10 times higher both in terms of danger and toxicity than the hydrocarbon limits envisaged for the toxic industrial sludge to be brought in landfill ".

The risk for Covid

To this is added a further very serious risk pointed out by the World Health Organization and the Istituto Superiore della Sanità: the sludge spread in agriculture can carry the Covid-19 virus. A danger reported in recent months by all international organizations and which now, with the exponential growth of infections, further increases the risk that the virus, through those sludge, could multiply the same spread. The senators ask the government to take immediate action to adopt two urgent acts: «the repeal of the provision provided for by article 41 of decree-law no. 109 of 2018, to avoid the distribution of hydrocarbons and other harmful substances on agricultural land "and" launch a moratorium that immediately suspends the use of civil and industrial sewage sludge on agricultural land for the entire period of the health emergency , whose transport could further carry the virus from Covid ".

Series analysis

Among the requests made to the Government there is that "for stricter national guiding limits to identify and monitor the pollution of agricultural soils, in particular in conjunction with the spreading of sludge" and "to require that the analyzes are not only on heavy metals, but also on all the other toxic substances present in the sludge ». The parliamentarians then ask the Government to define "a limit period for the resolution of the emergency and, in any case, to limit in this period the spreading only on land not intended for the production of foodstuffs". The appeal is peremptory: «to limit the spreading of civil, industrial and hospital sludge, presumed vectors of viruses».