Registered at the Tuscan
Voluntary Regional Register
for the promotion and
protection of the environmental and cultural heritage
Via Vittorio Emanuele II, 135, 50134 Florence
Tel and fax 055 233 76 65;
email idrafir@tin.it
Web http://www.idraonlus.it/vecchiosito/inizio/html: www.idraidra.dadacasa.supereva.it
Florence, August 27, 2004
Appeal to the 32nd
International Geological Congress
Open letter to
the group of geologists visiting the Mugello territories
involved in the
TAV (High Speed Train) works
“ Help Florence,
the World’s city! ”
Dear
Scholars,
We
are writing to you as you are about to visit the
Mugello territories that have been subjected, over the past few years, to one
of the most drastic human-induced devastations in Tuscany during the last
century: the attack on the hydro-geological system of the “garden of Florence”
forecast, projected and carried out to construct a 70 km-long tunnel
through the Appenines, planned to be used
(mostly without a parallel safety tunnel) by High Speed trains, fed by
25 kV alternating current (which is
different from the current used by the rest of the railway network).
No
mention shall here be made as to the serious reservations expressed by more
than one party regarding the doubtful social and transportation benefits of the
undertaking (which has never been subjected to an all-round comparison with
alternative projects) covering the very short distance between Florence and
Bologna (whereas the ordinary, regional, metropolitan and goods railway system
is in a parlous situation).
Neither
will we mention the statistics regarding the giddy upsurge in public
expenditure, which has increased ten fold, between the commencement of the
project (in 1991) and the present.
We
will also suspend all judgement as to the merits of the monitoring structures
and the assignment of resources for the environmental controlling systems,
which have however provided such conspicuous results, that the Florentine
magistrates have forcibly closed down numerous productive activities connected
with the building sites, and have ordered the courts to hold a penal trial of
unusual dimensions, calling scores of people to the bar.
We
want to draw your attention to a particular circumstance: the hydro-geological fragility of a city as dear to
the world as Florence, which is about to be transformed into a building site
for the same High Speed project. Brunelleschi’s town
is supposed to be pierced by two tunnels, each 7 kms long, which are designed
to drive perpendicularly through the phreatic layer flow lines; moreover a new station is supposed to be built
beneath the Mugnone, the Arno’s main tributary, which last overflowed in
Florence in 1992.
The
terrible experience of the Mugello, where 90 million cubic ms of phreatic water
have so far been lost and scores of sources, wells and streams have been dried
up, the environmental effects of which appear in most cases to be irreversible
or at any rate difficult to mitigate, after having been caused, seems to have
taught practically nothing to the politicians who have approved this new “open
heart” attack on a city whose environmental, social and health aspects have been
so grievously handled, thanks to the massive pollution deriving from private
transport and the numerous other building sites that have been opened or are
planned for the near future.
Years
have gone past, on the other hand, and nothing has been done to activate the
long - awaited and promised surface metropolitan railway: quite the contrary –
the Florentine stations (like the historical “Leopolda”) have been transformed into exhibition sites.
What
we are asking you to do is to provide us with a most valuable contribution, giving your authoritative opinion, so that Florence
not be similarly or even more seriously damaged by this badly planned High
Speed railway project than the territories that you will be able to examine in
the Mugello,
escorted, as you will be, by experts, who are well informed as to the genesis,
history and consequences of the badly planned operation which was even more
badly carried out.
To
conclude, we quote a Florentine engineer, Carlo Succi, who is deeply worried by
the TAV (High Speed Train) project which is planned to burrow through the
fragile geological strata beneath the town of Florence and in 1999 launched an appeal to all non-Florentines, to all friends of
the city, to help Florence to be saved from… itself. Our appeal to you is
generated by the same hope.
“In
1944, towards the end of the war, a man from the Friuli, a Frenchman and a
Swiss citizen managed to get Florence declared “open city”: the cardinal of
Florence, Elia Dalla Costa, the conductor Igor Markevitch and the honorary
consul of Switzerland, Carlo Steinhäuslin. Thanks to the reserved, and pressing
intervention of these three non-Florentines alone, Florence escaped the
irreparable destruction that the barbarian effects of war might have inflicted
on the town. Serious danger now threatens our city and the great heritage it
contains: a historical and artistic heritage that belongs to the citizens of
the world, whom we are asking to help us to preserve the city from the dramatic
consequences of an ill-considered project.”