Letter of the president of the Harbour Authority of Venice to the senators of the PD lasts on the issue of the great cruise ships in Laguna



Today the president of the Harbour Authority of Venice, Paolo Costa, has sent to a letter to the senators of the Party Democratic flaying the action that the parliamentarians are leading in order to ask for escavo of the Twisted Channel S. the Angel, determined participation last November from the government in order to realize a new via of access to the Marine Station of Venice and avoiding therefore the transit of the great cruise ships in the Basin of San Marco ( on 5 November 2013).

Last month the Party Democratic has introduced to the Prime Minister of the ministers a interrogation speeding up an participation on the issue of the transit of the great cruise ships in the Lagoon of Venice and successively, on 23 December, 30 senators of the PD have introduced a motion that engages the Prime Minister to resolve this problem. 2nd January the senator of the PD Felice Casson has confirmed that the PD will ask that such motion is inserted urgently in the calendar of the work of the Classroom of Madama palace, motion that - it has remembered - engages the Prime Minister Enrico Letta "to resolve this problem and, in particular, the conflict risen between minister Lupi and minister Orlando. Minister Lupi, in fact - he has specified Casson - would want that the project of digging of a new one, devastates and dangerous channel inside of the lagoon of Venice, the Which contorted channel, was inserted in the objective law to the aim to accelerate the times, to cut to the controls and the procedures, in particular those of VIA and VAS". Casson has moreover announced that at the end last year 15 senators of the Party Democratic have sent to the Prime Minister and, for information, to the minister of Infrastructures and the Transports, Maurizio Lupi, and to the minister of the Atmosphere, Andrea Orlando, "a letter with which - it has emphasized - it wonders to once again block a dangerous participation for the lagoon of Venice".

In the hard missive to the senators of the Party Democratic, that we publish below, the president of the Harbour Authority of Venice has accused them not to be himself informed directly on the state of the issue, a escavo, that of a new navigation channel following the tracing of the existing Contort-Sant'Angelo Channel, than - he has evidenced Paolo Costa - "provided that opportunely put into effect, he does not affect in meaningful way general hydrodynamics of the lagoon that is dominated by other factors". Moreover Coast has denounced that the action of the senators could put to risk not only the field of the cruises to Venice, "- it has found - of the little productive excellence of the Country, one of the little economic activities Italian undamaged passages through the crisis", but also "the entire economy Venetian harbour-manufacturer who - she has explained - would go in crisis if she had to renounce to the economies of scale in the offer of the harbour and technical-nautical services guaranteed from the compresenza of crocieristici traffics with those cargo vessels and manufacturers".


Harbour authority of Venice
The President
Harbour authority of Venice

Al Senator Luigi Zanda
Group leader to Senate PD

And to the Senators
Donatella Albano
Maria Teresa Bertuzzi
Laura Cantini
Felice Casson
Monica Cirinnà
Vincenzo Cuomo
Heather D' Adda
Maria Rosa Di Giorgi
Stefano Esposito
Nicoletta Favero
Nadia Ginetti
Sergio Lo Giudice
Claudio Micheloni
Carlo Pegorer
Stefania Pezzopane
Laura Puppato
Lucrezia Ricchiuti
Maria Spilabotte



Caro Luigi, beloveds Senators,

Knowing the experience, the seriousness and the engagement of many of you, I cannot not manifest all to you my bitterness and disappointment in learning of the content of the letter that you have intentional to address to the Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, to the Minister of Infrastructures and the Transports, Maurizio Lupi, and to the Minister of the Atmosphere, Andrea Orlando, against the ricalibratura of the Contort-Sant'Angelo channel in the lagoon of Venice: the solution win-win that it avoids to Venice the passage of the great cruise ships in front of San Marco, without for this killing the Venetian crocieristica portualità and putting to risk the remainder of the harbour activity, but indeed starting the morphologic recovery of the central lagoon, in logic of the "Plan for the morphologic and environmental recovery of the Lagoon of Venice" written up from the competent Magistrate to Waters of Venice".

Bitterness and disappointment in stating that you have considered to take the initiative without to feel the duty to know the facts: on one side, the contested characteristics of the project that completely without information and, from the other, the complex systemic relations that tie the success of the Venetian crocieristica to that of the entire national and adriatic crocieristica row, on one side, and, from the other, to the remainder of lagoon the commercial and industrial portualità, than today constitute the single alternative to the tourist monoculture and the hopes of socioeconomic revitalization of Venice and of its lagoon, than - as you it would have to be famous - it is protected from the special legislation for Venice to the pairs of the physical safeguard and that environmental one.

If you had had the patience to directly inform you on the state of the issue, could have known that, if also against irrational fears however not to underrate, it is from 2011 - very before the tragic incident of Costa Concordia to the Lily - than Marine Authority, Magistrate to Waters and Harbour Authority, Marco, examinee work in order to avoid the passage of the cruise ships from the Basin of S. and comparing, in their responsibility, all the possible alternatives and, at the end, converging on the solution - ricalibratura of the Twisted channel Sant'Angelo - moreover registered letter since 2004 from the Commissioner of Government delegated to the traffic watery in the lagoon of Venice on the base of a expertise entrusted prof. the Luigi D' Alpaos of the University of Padua. Which restated scientific appraisals, with all the cautions of the case, from the proff. Of Alpaos and Rinaldo, in the last convention dedicated to the argument from Istituto Veneto di Scienze Letters and Arts 12th October 2013.

In the current state of the lagoon and the mouths of port, the digging of a new navigation channel following the tracing of the existing Contort-Sant'Angelo Channel, provided that opportunely put into effect, does not affect in meaningful way general hydrodynamics of the lagoon that is dominated by other factors.

If you had had the patience to inform to you directly you could have stated that the Twisted channel Sant'Angelo does not constitute some hydraulic danger for the lagoon of Venice while can contribute to fight the true danger: that of morphologic order that can carry to the reduction of the central lagoon to an arm of sea.

False sideboard, of which you could yourselves have freed if you had had the patience to inform you directly, is that the lagoon blank if us every participation abstains from. The contrary is true exactly, as it demonstrates the current deterioration of the central lagoon that is impoverished of 700 million m3 of sediments every year; sediments that can be withheld only "protect the lagoon from the ship canals and the ship canals from the lagoon": exactly what it would be wanted to be made if of Twisted Sant'Angelo, reconstructing the morphology of the central lagoon with velme and obtained shoals using the mud of the escavo, than - other news that you could have collected directly - fortunately they are not polluted.

I am sure that, if adequately you had inquired, you would have, for intellectual honesty, recognized in Contort-Sant'Angelo that balanced solution able to pursue is the safeguard objectives (morphologic recovery) of Venice and of its lagoon it is those, functional to the first, of its revitalization that cannot not be founded on harbour the marine tradition and of the Most serene one.

But there is another plan of appraisals that you could have made before your “recklessness” and that I hope you still want to make. They are those which regard the relations, complex because the truth is more complex than it does not join at first sight, between the Venetian crocieristica portualità and that of the entire Adriatic, on one side, and between crocieristica and remainder of the harbour activity, from the other.

Venice is not a crocieristico port any. The port is the home port (terminus) of the cruises of the Mediterranean Oriental. A role that Venice only maintains regarding the competitors - Athens and Istanbul on all - for the fleeting efficiency of the terminal the Marine one that is daughter of its location (full nautical accessibility, full fleeting accessibility, full accessibility edge supplies) and that it would be extremely difficult and expensive in time and money to reply.

I cannot imagine that someone tasks to put to risk one of the little productive excellence of the Country, one of the little economic activities Italian undamaged passages through the crisis. Making useless the huge investments made in the field - on constant political-administrative indications from Project ‘80 in then! - in last the 15 years, it is with money public that private, to advantage of other ports that for our masochism could only remove to Italy the Port Home of the Mediterranean Oriental.

It must be clearly that if the way to the necessary work for the ricalibratura of the Contort Channel will not be given ready. Angel - with all the cautions and the prescription that will have to gush from the ulterior examination of the project during VIA - is the Italy System that will not succeed to guarantee those conditions of base that they have pushed the companies of cruise and the social parts involved to face heavy economic provided that limited sacrifices in the time of biennium 2014-15. The understanding It are - Region in order to entrust to the procedures of objective law the realization of Contort-Sant'Angelo, lungi from wanting to avoid appraisals of environmental impact that will have to be most rigorous, is the instrument with which the State makes cargo and guarantor in front of the world of the correctness of the participation and the respect of the times that must allow to arrange of the way navigable alternative beginning from 2016.

But there is more. It is the entire economy Venetian harbour-manufacturer who would go in crisis if she had to renounce to the economies of scale in the offer of the harbour and technical-nautical services guaranteed from the compresenza of crocieristici traffics with those cargo vessels and manufacturers. They are those economies of scale that today allow to maintain the port of Venice on the market, in spite of the difficulties of nautical accessibility taxes from the acceptance of implicit the environmental pact in the cohabitation between port and Mose (the system of bulkheads furniture that will defend Venice and its lagoon from tidal waves). If those economies of scale had to collapse the port goods of Venice would become lost, with serious consequences for the productive system north-estino and its export.

It would be tragic that this happened just in the moment in which - making a virtue of necessity - Venice re-inventing once again its relationship with the sea, has planned and one gets ready to
to realize “offshore-onshore” a harbour system to the technological and environmental and able vanguard to put on of the Country one of the little ports of call adapted to the requirements of the world-wide traffics and the Venetian market, nordestino, European Italian and on which can win also the more trained competition.

In inviting to you to Venice, sure that where it prevails the good faith can be clarified every misunderstanding, to work together for the good of Venice and of Italy, I pray you to accept the my better salutes,
The President Paolo Costa