A ten million euro plan to restore the old salt mine in Bosco San Cataldo in Sicily. The green light for the intervention that wants to “restore the environment and restore value to the site (in the Nisseno) where the work began two hundred years ago comes from the Sicilian Region which, through the Department of Energy, has given the green light to proposal for a 10 million euro finance project. A work
It is important that, as pointed out to the Region, it will allow the redevelopment of the mining site started in the early 1830s and decommissioned in 1989.
The new course
Today for the industrial compendium, born as a solfara between 1830 and 1838 and then exploited by Montecatini which in 1954, during the search for sulfur, found a salt deposit containing a layer of potassium salt (kainite), and explored up to 224 meters of depth, a new course opens up. The initiative, as underlined by Governor Renato Schifani, in the logic of the circular economy, also pushed by the European Union “represents a virtuous model of public-private partnership that will not only eliminate polluting sources, but will constitute an opportunity for economic development” .
Finance project
To explain the path followed to put an end to a “thirty-year” problem is Antonio Martini, a mining engineer with long experience and general manager of the regional energy department: “A problem that lasts three decades is solved thanks to a modern and innovative concept, that it will not involve any expense for the Region, on the contrary it will guarantee it new revenues, and it will give the territory answers long awaited ».
The intervention
According to the finance project, the intervention “will make it possible to dispose of the heap of rock salt present in the area, which has been a source of pollution for years, using the mineral as a product against freezing in the streets”. A solution that, as pointed out to the Region, could also create new employment: 15-20 personnel directly employed and another thirty in the related industries.
Economic and environmental benefits
“The economic benefits also include an increase in tax revenue, investments for over 10 million euros to be paid by the private individual and the payment to the Region of the mining production fee.” the construction of a photovoltaic field and the planting of trees resistant to saline soils.