Last September 13, the decision of the Taranto Court of Appeal to
overturn the first-instance ruling known as "Environment Sold Out"
caused outcry and indignation, which had seen 26 "excellent" defendants
convicted in relation to the environmental disaster of the former Ilva
after more than 10 years of hearings. With the most classic of
bureaucratic quibbles, the judges accepted the defense's requests to
transfer the criminal proceedings to Potenza, where the possibility of a
general statute of limitations, and therefore impunity for all, becomes
highly probable.
The umpteenth confirmation that environmental battles cannot be fought
only in court has obviously weakened the spirit of the many people who
fight for social justice in Taranto every day, but we are certain that
the fighting spirit will soon return. However, the Apulian affair is a
source of food for thought. Starting from an article in Il Fatto
Quotidiano that in the days following the decision of the Court of
Assizes published an interesting analysis of the environmental trials
that risk having the same fate. And unfortunately some of them concern
Sicily.
It is worth dwelling on those concerning Eni in Syracuse and Gela
because they are emblematic of various factors that we have been
denouncing for some time and that nevertheless struggle to become a
collective sentiment: the absolute ineptitude of a judiciary that is
strong with the weak and weak with the strong, the communicative
dominance of companies that are only apparently Italian, the absence of
a constant source of pressure from the population that inevitably
results in continuous slaps in the face for those who still equate
social justice with the injustice of the courts. If you want to achieve
something from the judicial side at an environmental level, you have to
supervise every single hearing, organize press conferences before and
after, study thousands of pages and make an effort to make them
understandable, avoiding that they become the exclusive prerogative of
professionals (lawyers, journalists, various consultants, environmental
associations).
Let's take for example the Siracusa petrochemical hub, known as the
quadrilateral of death (which includes Priolo, Augusta, Melilli and
Siracusa), where the impact on health and the environment is notoriously
devastating: recently the most emblematic case is that of the IAS
purifier in Priolo where civil wastewater from the surrounding
municipalities and sludge from the industrial area are treated. In
August, the preliminary investigations judge of Siracusa blocked the
purifier's activities because there was no "balance between health and
industry" and above all "there is no concrete objective of remediation,
as no investments or technical solutions are planned". How does Eni
react? He judges the measure "illegitimate, abnormal and unfounded",
moreover "without a shred of evidence": this is the language used by the
most important and influential Italian energy company, an arrogance
dictated by the exercise of power in the territories, which leaves
noteworthy traces.
A few days ago I happened to present a report on Eni's influence on the
world of culture, where the sponsorships of the six-legged dog are
instrumental in obtaining consensus and silencing every critical voice.
With me was Gianni Barbacetto, a well-known judicial reporter for Il
Fatto Quotidiano, who reported on the complaint, fortunately rejected,
filed by the company against the newspaper not for a single article but
for all those who criticized the moves of the six-legged dog, which he
judged to be a "defamatory campaign aimed at placing the company in a
false light". Eni also asked for 350 thousand euros in damages and
demanded the removal of the articles contested by the Il Fatto website.
In the meantime, however, a newspaper is held in check and above all the
sources are intimidated, Barbacetto commented on that occasion. And, I
would add, it extinguishes any possible involvement.
An emblematic case that occurred in Gela a few years ago comes to mind:
in 2013, the entrepreneur David Melfa had filed a civil lawsuit against
"the fear of getting sick" and against the "nauseating odors" that the
refinery works would cause. Melfa had involved a part of civil society
that until then had been difficult to talk to. But in 2014, Eni had sued
him for a post on Facebook in which he accused the managers of being
environmental criminals, asking him for one million euros for damages to
their image. The result? Melfa disappeared from city life, and with him
also the bourgeois protagonism. In the meantime, however, in Gela the
legal proceedings pile up and Eni always comes out incredibly unscathed.
As far as I can remember, the only legal proceeding in which Eni
substantially acknowledged the pollution caused by its plants was in
2011, when it signed a one and a half million euro settlement for
damaging the bodywork of luxury cars of a dealership, Lucauto, which in
2021 was seized for external complicity in mafia association.
At the same time, Eni has always indignantly rejected the causal link
between industrial activities and the neonatal malformations that place
Gela in first place in Italy, in what is an obscene record. A link that
has never been ascertained by the Gela court, as the latest sentences
(2018 and 2021) show. Of the 30 families who had filed the appeal, only
two are continuing the legal process, currently at a standstill in the
appeal stage at the Caltanissetta court, which should rule by the end of
this year.
English: But in my opinion, there is another most sensational trial that
bears witness more than any other that the State does not prosecute Eni
and does not intend to do so, not now or ever: it is the criminal
proceeding for "unnamed disaster, illegal waste management and discharge
of industrial waste water" that sees 22 people accused, including
managers and staff of the Gela Refinery and EniMed (the Eni company that
deals with hydrocarbons in Sicily) and which, in the words of former
prosecutor Fernando Asaro, is "a particularly complex proceeding that
concerns everything that had been ascertained at an environmental level
up to 2015". Eni describes it as follows: "this criminal proceeding
initially had as its object the ascertainment of the alleged pollution
of the subsoil resulting from product leaks from 14 storage tanks of the
Gela Refinery not yet equipped with double bottoms, as well as
contamination phenomena in the coastal marine areas adjacent to the
plant due to the failure of the barrier system created as part of the
site remediation procedure. On the occasion of the closing of the
preliminary investigations, the judge has merged into this proceeding
other investigations concerning pollution episodes connected to the
operation of other plants of the Gela Refinery and to some phenomena of
hydrocarbon leakage from the pipes belonging to the EniMed company". To
be clear, not putting double bottoms on the tanks, as some workers told
me, is a serious thing, it is a sign of sloppiness at the very least,
because polluting substances go into the storage tanks. The same
proceeding includes the accusation of failure to clean up the
groundwater which in 2021 had even led to the seizure not of individual
plants but of the entire Eni company, Rewind, which deals with the cleanups.
To conclude: eight and a half years have passed since the requests for
indictment and the first degree has not even been concluded yet! Has the
time come to preside over the courts or not?
Andrea Turco
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
overturn the first-instance ruling known as "Environment Sold Out"
caused outcry and indignation, which had seen 26 "excellent" defendants
convicted in relation to the environmental disaster of the former Ilva
after more than 10 years of hearings. With the most classic of
bureaucratic quibbles, the judges accepted the defense's requests to
transfer the criminal proceedings to Potenza, where the possibility of a
general statute of limitations, and therefore impunity for all, becomes
highly probable.
The umpteenth confirmation that environmental battles cannot be fought
only in court has obviously weakened the spirit of the many people who
fight for social justice in Taranto every day, but we are certain that
the fighting spirit will soon return. However, the Apulian affair is a
source of food for thought. Starting from an article in Il Fatto
Quotidiano that in the days following the decision of the Court of
Assizes published an interesting analysis of the environmental trials
that risk having the same fate. And unfortunately some of them concern
Sicily.
It is worth dwelling on those concerning Eni in Syracuse and Gela
because they are emblematic of various factors that we have been
denouncing for some time and that nevertheless struggle to become a
collective sentiment: the absolute ineptitude of a judiciary that is
strong with the weak and weak with the strong, the communicative
dominance of companies that are only apparently Italian, the absence of
a constant source of pressure from the population that inevitably
results in continuous slaps in the face for those who still equate
social justice with the injustice of the courts. If you want to achieve
something from the judicial side at an environmental level, you have to
supervise every single hearing, organize press conferences before and
after, study thousands of pages and make an effort to make them
understandable, avoiding that they become the exclusive prerogative of
professionals (lawyers, journalists, various consultants, environmental
associations).
Let's take for example the Siracusa petrochemical hub, known as the
quadrilateral of death (which includes Priolo, Augusta, Melilli and
Siracusa), where the impact on health and the environment is notoriously
devastating: recently the most emblematic case is that of the IAS
purifier in Priolo where civil wastewater from the surrounding
municipalities and sludge from the industrial area are treated. In
August, the preliminary investigations judge of Siracusa blocked the
purifier's activities because there was no "balance between health and
industry" and above all "there is no concrete objective of remediation,
as no investments or technical solutions are planned". How does Eni
react? He judges the measure "illegitimate, abnormal and unfounded",
moreover "without a shred of evidence": this is the language used by the
most important and influential Italian energy company, an arrogance
dictated by the exercise of power in the territories, which leaves
noteworthy traces.
A few days ago I happened to present a report on Eni's influence on the
world of culture, where the sponsorships of the six-legged dog are
instrumental in obtaining consensus and silencing every critical voice.
With me was Gianni Barbacetto, a well-known judicial reporter for Il
Fatto Quotidiano, who reported on the complaint, fortunately rejected,
filed by the company against the newspaper not for a single article but
for all those who criticized the moves of the six-legged dog, which he
judged to be a "defamatory campaign aimed at placing the company in a
false light". Eni also asked for 350 thousand euros in damages and
demanded the removal of the articles contested by the Il Fatto website.
In the meantime, however, a newspaper is held in check and above all the
sources are intimidated, Barbacetto commented on that occasion. And, I
would add, it extinguishes any possible involvement.
An emblematic case that occurred in Gela a few years ago comes to mind:
in 2013, the entrepreneur David Melfa had filed a civil lawsuit against
"the fear of getting sick" and against the "nauseating odors" that the
refinery works would cause. Melfa had involved a part of civil society
that until then had been difficult to talk to. But in 2014, Eni had sued
him for a post on Facebook in which he accused the managers of being
environmental criminals, asking him for one million euros for damages to
their image. The result? Melfa disappeared from city life, and with him
also the bourgeois protagonism. In the meantime, however, in Gela the
legal proceedings pile up and Eni always comes out incredibly unscathed.
As far as I can remember, the only legal proceeding in which Eni
substantially acknowledged the pollution caused by its plants was in
2011, when it signed a one and a half million euro settlement for
damaging the bodywork of luxury cars of a dealership, Lucauto, which in
2021 was seized for external complicity in mafia association.
At the same time, Eni has always indignantly rejected the causal link
between industrial activities and the neonatal malformations that place
Gela in first place in Italy, in what is an obscene record. A link that
has never been ascertained by the Gela court, as the latest sentences
(2018 and 2021) show. Of the 30 families who had filed the appeal, only
two are continuing the legal process, currently at a standstill in the
appeal stage at the Caltanissetta court, which should rule by the end of
this year.
English: But in my opinion, there is another most sensational trial that
bears witness more than any other that the State does not prosecute Eni
and does not intend to do so, not now or ever: it is the criminal
proceeding for "unnamed disaster, illegal waste management and discharge
of industrial waste water" that sees 22 people accused, including
managers and staff of the Gela Refinery and EniMed (the Eni company that
deals with hydrocarbons in Sicily) and which, in the words of former
prosecutor Fernando Asaro, is "a particularly complex proceeding that
concerns everything that had been ascertained at an environmental level
up to 2015". Eni describes it as follows: "this criminal proceeding
initially had as its object the ascertainment of the alleged pollution
of the subsoil resulting from product leaks from 14 storage tanks of the
Gela Refinery not yet equipped with double bottoms, as well as
contamination phenomena in the coastal marine areas adjacent to the
plant due to the failure of the barrier system created as part of the
site remediation procedure. On the occasion of the closing of the
preliminary investigations, the judge has merged into this proceeding
other investigations concerning pollution episodes connected to the
operation of other plants of the Gela Refinery and to some phenomena of
hydrocarbon leakage from the pipes belonging to the EniMed company". To
be clear, not putting double bottoms on the tanks, as some workers told
me, is a serious thing, it is a sign of sloppiness at the very least,
because polluting substances go into the storage tanks. The same
proceeding includes the accusation of failure to clean up the
groundwater which in 2021 had even led to the seizure not of individual
plants but of the entire Eni company, Rewind, which deals with the cleanups.
To conclude: eight and a half years have passed since the requests for
indictment and the first degree has not even been concluded yet! Has the
time come to preside over the courts or not?
Andrea Turco
http://sicilialibertaria.it
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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