"For a terminal operator, dredging is not only an environmental or technical issue: it is a condition essential to ensure the operation of the berth, commitments made to shipowners and maintain the competitiveness of the port". Stefano underlined this Mordeglia, general manager of Servizi Industriali Genova SIGE, spoke on behalf of the Italian Association Port Terminal Operators (Assiterminal) at the dedicated technical session "Sediments, dredging and reuse" held today in Ferrara as part of RemTech Expo.

"The variable that governs the competitiveness of a terminal - specified Mordeglia - is not the seabed but the certainty of the seabed available when the ship arrives. A meter of draught that is missing that day can result in lightening of the load, waiting for the tide, less payload or, in the worst cases, diversion to another port". Hence the need, according to Assiterminal, to overcome a logic of episodic interventions and ensure for each Port System Authority structural planning and of maintenance dredging, with volumes, destinations of materials and financial coverage, together with multi-year authorizations and certain times for the approval of the material management projects.

The representative of Assiterminal explained that another a central aspect is the relationship between the seabed and the state of the docks, given that the deepening of the seabed in front of works may affect the geotechnical conditions and the infrastructure security often built several decades ago and today subjected to increasing stresses, also as a result of the dimensions and power of new generation ships. For This, according to the association, a dredging project cannot concern only the sediment, but must also consider the state and the stability of the quay. System Authority The port and concessionaires should also build a real "approach file", through periodic bathymetry, underwater inspections and monitoring of infrastructure.

For Assiterminal, moreover, the maintenance of the seabed should be managed, as in the large ports of Northern Europe, as a recurrent industrial process, through monitoring and planning of interventions and destinations of materials.

Finally, the destination and reuse of sediments is central: reclaimed areas, nourishment, transfers and the possibility of should be planned together with the excavation, because without a certain outlet for the materials even the simplification of procedures risks not resulting in a greater availability of the seabed.

"The terminal operator - concluded Mordeglia - does not need it just a simpler rule. We need a rule predictable. If I know when and how much we dredge, I can sign a contract. If I don't know, I can't."