Marmolada, Lake Fedaia reduced to a puddle: “We are at 10% of capacity”

The water level never so low in living memory, the plant is managed by Enel

ROCCA PIETORE. Lake Fedaia, at the foot of the Marmolada glacier, has never been so empty. Enel, which manages it, usually empties it from autumn to spring, to fill it when the snow melts on the great mountain. But, as everyone knows by now, very little snow came this winter. We are at 2053 meters. The basin is 57 meters deep. «In reality – explains Aurelio Soraruf, who manages the Castiglioni refuge – there are two Fedaia lakes, separated from each other by an artificial dam. The best known and most extensive is the western one, which originated after the construction of a dam in 1956. The other is much smaller and was formed following a glacial moraine dam. The artificial lake is about two kilometers long. The dam is 622 meters long, 57 meters high and 42 meters wide at the base ». The basin can hold 15 million cubic meters of water. Most of it is given by the glacier, or rather by the snows that cover it, by the ablation of the surface which, like this summer, could reduce by 20-30 cm, and by the precipitations that are almost daily even in these days, but obviously without effects.

Attilio Bressan was the caretaker for a lifetime of the hydroelectric plant of Malga Ciapela, which allows the production of 20 mw of power. The water that is worked there is that of Lake Fedaia. A four kilometer long pipeline bores the Marmolada and then falls precipitously to Malga Ciapela ». But the water from the Ombretta valley dam is also pumped into the Fedaia, which then descends towards Malga Ciapela. The water released by the hydroelectric plant ends up in the Pettorina stream, which then flows into the Cordevole and finally into the Piave. «It is evident that this drought is putting this whole system in crisis. For weeks now, the Fedaia has looked like a lunar crater, with banks showing all their nakedness for 20-30 meters deep. In this season the lake should be full, however – underlines the environmentalist Luigi Casanova of Mountain Wilderness – it is an expanse of gravel and partly a puddle. «The grass of the escarpment – he notes – certifies where the water level should go. By eye we are at one tenth of the capacity. «Well, all this water that is collected in the Trentino part of the Marmolada ends up in Veneto. As if to say, that the question of borders just shouldn’t be raised. Instead the Venetian authorities should think deeply about how they use and abuse our water “.