Name of the conflict: SOS Monte Amiata Geothermal
Where:Mount Amiata, Tuscany, Italy
Actors: Enel Green Power manages the geothermal plants currently in operation in the municipalities of Piancastagnaio, Siena(4 plants from 68 MW) and Santa Fiora, on the side of Grosseto of the mountain (1 center from 20 MW). It is currently under assessment, at regional level, the expansion of the existing plants and the construction of new plants. Citizens of the area gathered together the 24th of March 2012 in a public assembly, and have created the network “Coordination of Movements for Amiata – SOS Geothermal ), which brings together those opposing the destruction of the territory of Amiata, which still remains largely uncontaminated. The Manifesto of Sos-Geothermal Committee, just published, has already raised the membership of dozens of local and national committees and associations including the Itaian Forum of water movements.
What is happening:
In order to support the profit making and the speculation, ENEL in alliance with the regional government, is making a very serious environmental destruction. This destruction is perpetrated by promoting the false belief that geothermal is a renewable and clean source of energy. In reality the cleanness strictly depends on the hydro-geochemistry composition of the geothermal ground.
In the case of Amiata is exactly the opposite: the geothermal plants polluteand consume much more water than the natural recharge quantity. In addition to the water pollution the plants emit vapors into the atmosphere rich in carbon dioxide, mercury, arsenic, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and other pollutants causing serious damage to the environment and health of inhabitants. It is currently under discussion a further expansion of the number of plants and their installed capacity. This would mean a real ecological and democratic disaster. The Tuscany regional government supports the project for mere economic reasons. ENEL receives an enormous gain generated by the mechanism of green certificates, subsidies and public funding, and distributes to the regional authority and the municipalities a huge amount of money as environmental compensation. Self-organized committees of citizens who are trying to stop this environmental disaster, without the official support of any political party.
Danger to the population:The epidemiological study of Monasterio Foundation in Pisa titled “Geothermal Project”, in the section related to health information acknowledgedthe increase of serious pathology and mortality in some geothermal areas in relation to increasing concentrations of the pollutants emitted by power plants . In the town of Amiata the average of mortality is 13% higher than everywhere else in Tuscany and closer towns having the same lifestyle.
Environmental hazards: In addition to pollution on the surface, there is the problem of the depletion and pollution of the mountain aquifer, one of the richest in Italy, which supplies water to about 700,000 citizens in the provinces of Grosseto, Siena and Viterbo. The phenomenon is due to the connections, via faults and fractures, betweenthe drinking groundwater and the water of the geothermal field. Each time that the extracted steam flow rate increases the deep depression increases as well, pulling up the water in the superficial shallow. The result is that the the capacity of the water source decrease. Moreover the concentration of dissolved and accumulated heavy metals increase. The reduction of the aquifer is estimated at several hundred billion liters, corresponding to the consumption of drinking water for the world population for more than a month.
Possible solutions:To stop the construction of new power plants and call for a moratorium for the existing plants. Only after this first step it will be possible to re- think a new development model for the territory able to give values to the social, cultural and environmental factors of the region.
Contacts: Sos-geotermia@bruttocarattere.org; http://sosgeotermia.noblogs.org; https://www.facebook.com/sos.geotermia
