The general Emilio Errigo is the new extraordinary commissioner for the implementation of the reclamation and repair of environmental damage of the Crotone-Cassano-Cerchiara Site of National Interest. Errigo, who has led Arpacal until now, was appointed today by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. His task, as stated in the government decree signed by the undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano, will be to “accelerate and promote” the environmental restoration works which are currently blocked. The mandate will last two years, extendable by another 12 months. In this way the Meloni executive filled a space that had remained empty since 2018, when ad Elisabetta Belli he finished the assignment. Since then, from Rome there have only been indications, which have remained so, as to who should succeed Belli, while the reclamation process continues to remain at a standstill after the construction of the hydraulic barrier at sea (included in Pob-phase 1).
There are several open chapters that will be found on the Errigo table. Above all, there are the over 70 million euros to be spent on environmental redevelopment which Eni Rewind (the company that succeeded Syndial in ownership of the former industrial area), upon decision of the Court of Milan, paid to the Ministry of the Environment in 2012 at compensation for the environmental damage suffered by Crotone. After that, we need to overcome the impasse into which the operational reclamation plan – phase 2 has fallen. For some time, in fact, the six-legged dog has expressed its intention to dispose of approximately 70 thousand cubic meters of waste, between Tenorm and asbestos, present in the former Fosfotec seafront landfill no longer outside Calabria (as established by the ministerial decree of March 2020), but in an “on-site” service plant. But faced with this hypothesis, the Municipality of Crotone, the Province and the Region have always said they are against it.
Then, there is the need to start the permanent safety measures of the former industrial areas of Agriculture and Pertusola, still at a standstill after the removal of the superficial layer of land contaminated by pollutants such as zinc and cadmium, which the multinational itself has completed. Next, it will be necessary to reclaim the former urban waste landfill in the Farina district, and remove the catalyzed hydraulic conglomerate (industrial production waste previously used as building material) from the three public sites: the courtyard of the former school of San Francesco (work has already begun here); the Aterp public housing units in the Margherita district; and the “Lucifero” technical-commercial institute. Finally, space for the safety of the former Sasol-Kroton Gres 2000 factory. In the next six months, Commissioner Errigo will have to present the timetable of interventions to the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security.