In recent days, following specific environmental control and monitoring services carried out in the area of jurisdiction, the Judicial Police of the Environmental Police Unit (NOPA) of Port Authority of Corigliano Calabria has identified, in three commercial and industrial activities, the opening of unauthorized drains and equally illicit disposal of liquid waste on and in the soil.
In particular, the military personnel operating, with the investigative coordination of the Castrovillari Public Prosecutor’s Office, directed by the Chief Prosecutor Dr. Alessandro D’Alessio, have executed the preventive seizure decree of a car wash located in the Municipality of Corigliano-Rossano where, following inspection activities, also carried out through the use of tracer liquid, it was ascertained that the water collection system deriving from the car wash was illicitly connected to the municipal sewerage system.
During further inspections carried out at industrial sites, in which the processing of olives and pomace took place, two cases of illicit disposal of wastewater deriving from the processing were ascertained (in the Municipalities of Cerchiara di Calabria and Corigliano-Rossano) which were spilled , without any purification treatment, on the soil. The two cases in question, integrating the “crime of unauthorized waste management activities”, allowed the Judicial Police to carry out as many urgent preventive seizures, validated by the Judicial Authority, and to refer the perpetrators of the crimes to the competent Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic.
These data are added to the results deriving from the intense activity carried out by the Coast Guard of Corigliano Calabria since the beginning of the current year in order to safeguard the environment, which are summarized below. In the month of January, the owner of an oil mill located in the municipality of Corigliano-Rossano was caught pouring the run-off water from the rooms where the machinery used for processing the olives were located into a watercourse, which resulted in heavy defaced. In this circumstance, the judicial police referred the perpetrator of the crime to the competent judicial authority, proceeding with the emergency seizure of the factory.
The owners of two fuel service stations were discovered pouring the waste contaminated by hydrocarbons deriving from the run-off of the yards of these commercial activities, respectively, into the public sewer and into a drainage ditch. Even in these two cases, the first ascertained in February in the municipality of San Demetrio Corone and the second in Corigliano-Rossano in the month of May, the ascertained crimes of industrial waste discharge without authorization led the judicial police to carry out the preventive seizure of urgency of the two service stations, obtaining validation from the competent judicial authority, with the consequent referral of the perpetrators of the crime to the competent Public Prosecutor’s Office.
In the months from January to May 2024, the staff of the Port Authority, assisted by that of the local maritime offices of Trebisacce and Cariati and by that of the Montegiordano beach delegation, carried out checks on all the purification plants located on the coast of jurisdiction, which extends for approximately 150 kilometres, from the municipality of Rocca imperiale to that of Cariati. During the numerous checks carried out at two municipal facilities in February and May, large quantities of waste deriving from the urban wastewater purification cycle were found, which, instead of being disposed of at authorized centres, were illegally stored in defiance of the regulations in force in matter. Said waste, consisting of sludge and purification screen, amounting in total to more than 200 cubic metres, was seized with the simultaneous issuing of specific warnings which obligated the plant managers to immediately dispose of it. This intervention also allowed a significant improvement in the ordinary functioning of the purifiers involved: very often, precisely because of the saturation of the structures caused by this type of illicit storage, the plants are not subjected to the regular and periodic expulsion from the purification cycle of those which in technical jargon are defined as “dead sludge”, which then inevitably ends up being poured into the so-called receiving body and thus – especially with regards to plants close to the coast – to the sea, with a consequent significant deterioration of the quality of bathing water during the summer season.
The inspections and checks also involved structures and pipes making up the municipal sewerage networks, with particular attention to those located close to canals, valleys and waterways. Also in this case, following meticulous inspections carried out using tracer liquid, in the months of June and September, four municipal structures were discovered and placed under preventive emergency seizure which allowed the illicit spillage of untreated sewage waste. in the receptor bodies.
We are therefore starting to conclude a year of intense judicial police activity in the environmental field, with hundreds of checks carried out throughout the Ionian side of the Province of Cosenza by the military of the Coriglianese Coast Guard, which also in 2025 will be committed to guaranteeing compliance with current regulations on the matter throughout the territory of jurisdiction.