There are those in Veneto who call it the «Marshall Plan for water». In these hours, while Emilia Romagna is dealing with the damages of the scourge and the map of the delays in terms of prevention, what has been done in Veneto since 2010 emerges, when a flood hit the areas of Padua and Vicenza. From then on, the center-right junta led by the Northern League Luca Zaia began a structural path, with a progressive investment that has reached 3 and a half billion euros over the years. With the keystone of the “lamination basins”, tanks that are used to collect the excess water from the rivers, in the event of heavy rains. breaking latest news reported a statement from the Regional Councilor for the Environment and Civil Protection: «So far we have completed 5 basins, invested 400 million in consolidation works, 320 million in maintenance works. And we’re only halfway there. Already today, however, we can say that there has been an important turning point. The impacting events in 2018, 2019 and 2020 testify to this». In particular, in 2018 there was a major flood, with considerable damage but still with a lower impact than that of 2010. Of course, faced with the power of extreme climatic events it is not possible to find a shield that completely shields from damage, but the Veneto route it shows that they can be content and a lot. And some sources close to the dossier, whom Il Tempo was able to contact, explain that this prevention work was carried out in perfect synergy with the mayors, who were the first to want to make a change of this type, considering that Veneto is a Region very rich in rivers, streams and canals.
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Only with teamwork at various administrative levels, in fact, was it possible to carry out a work of perspective with effects that in the municipal dimension would never have been possible to achieve. A state of affairs which inevitably, ascertained with mere observation of the facts and without any veil of controversy, is compared with what happened in Emilia Romagna. Between 2015 and 2022 the Region, led by Stefano Bonaccini and Pd, received 190 million, resources that had to be used to plant 23 coffers. As breaking latest news reports again, only 12 have been completed, 2 are partially operational, nine are still to be completed and 2 have yet to be financed. So we always return to the central theme, i.e. spending power. Moreover, specifically in Emilia Romagna, the issue of the allocation of resources had also been tackled by a report by the Court of Auditors, which had pointed the finger at the failure to spend, on time, amounts of money to maintain some courses waterfall. The road to follow, however, has also been indicated by geologists. The President of the Order of the Marches (region affected by the wave of bad weather, but with much less damage than in Emilia Romagna), Piero Farabollini, observes: «The floods of these days could be avoided with proper maintenance of the riverbeds, but not with the isolated interventions we often witness, but from the mouth to the source. This implies careful management of the mountain territory, which in recent decades has been left to itself guiltily». His counterpart from Emilia Romagna, Paride Antolini, also shares the same line: «Emilia-Romagna represents a very important part of the Italian economy, starting from the tourism industry. Thinking about companies and the protection of the economy will also mean building all the infrastructures necessary to protect the water resource in order to face possible and future periods of drought and focus more and more on maintenance».