From the mountains to the sea. The hot summer does not spare any corner of the country. It’s a’climate emergency that from Marmolada glacier, from the days of detachment and tragedy, it arrives down here, at the mouth of the After, the great river that is no longer. Reduced, by the absence of rains and by one arventata plain, to a shroud. The flow rate went from an average of 1,500 cubic meters per second to just 170, historical low. With the sea that has gone up the course of the After for 40 kilometers. A salty disaster. From water to water, the problem shifts to Adriatic coast: wrong parameters, presence of Escherichia coli, parts of the coast that are not suitable for swimming. While the North drowns in the mud of the ‘bombs’ from the sky and the overflowing streams.
I presaged
In February, an icy wind blew along the Po, but the signs were already there to understand what was going to happen. Sixty-year-old Giuliano Poggioli pointed them out along the base of the bridge at Pontelagoscuro. Now from the boat he points to the notch and shakes his head: “In this period it is not never been this low“. The Francolino shoal reaches the other shore. In Pontelagoscuro people have placed umbrellas and sunbeds, transforming the embankment into a bathing establishment. Record drought: not seen for seventy years.
The great river is gone
“The flow of the Po is close to the dramatic psychological threshold of the 100 cubic meters per second to the Ferrara survey of Pontelagoscuro, which would decree the end of the image of the great river with all the consequences, especially of an environmental nature “.Anbi Observatory. The rising of the saline wedge touches i 40 kilometers from the mouth of the Po di Goro during high tide “affecting the withdrawals for drinking purposes”.
The salt advances
Nino Rocchi, an agricultural entrepreneur, one of the largest tomato producers in the Mezzano, has a dark face. The saline wedge it got there. We are 20 kilometers from the sea in Ostellato, but the scenario is destined to get worse. The Ferrara reclamation consortium finds traces of salt in some irrigation systems in Serravalle. The plant is stopped. The phenomenon also alerts the water factory, a consortium that supplies the homes of eleven municipalities. A similar battle is fought by Hera, who has installed a raft with five floating pumps in Pontelagoscuro, capable of taking action if the level of the Po falls further. The multi-utility in the province of Ferrara manages 2,500 kilometers of pipelines, an aqueduct network that serves 250,000 inhabitants distributed in 11 municipalities.
Even the strata in suffering
Never so low. To hold the record is Bologna, Ferrara arrives immediately after. The lack of rain has become structural. And the fields? Shifts have been started to irrigate along some sections of the canals. Hope is in the rains, the priests also invoked it with a procession to Pilastri di Bondeno. The fishermen of Goro, on the other hand, due to the heat have been fighting for days against the giant algae that suffocate the clams.
Analyzes in the sea
Just beyond the mouth of the Po, the Riviera discovers unexpected data on bacteria. From Goro to Rimini, the numbers are not comforting, accentuated by the heat. Even science has doubts: analysis and counter-analysis, the bulletin shakes the beaches, imprisons them and frees them. However, the tourism industry does not stop. But he has to deal with crazy weather. Malignant.