Ilva: is a sustainable factory possible?

Three solutions for a dilemma

It is from the 1980s that the dilemma between environmental conservation and economic growth begins to appear in all its drama. In 1983 the World Commission on Environment and Development was created, known for having published the report in 1987 Our common future. A few years later (1992), with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the UN Conference on Environment and Development officially begins a season of greater attention to the relations between the environment and development.

There are three possibilities to solve the dilemma: we can consider that growth and environment are incompatible and therefore privilege the first or the second. Alternatively, you can try to follow the narrow path of an environmentally compatible development. The first is an "industrialist" vision, from "the GDP party", while the second marries degrowth (happy? Who knows). The third way, that which can be defined as sustainable development, pursues the decoupling of economic growth and environmental protection.

If on the disciplinary level the economists of the environment are almost invariably placed within the third vision, on the political-social level things are less clear. But if declined in national political sauce, the three visions are roughly called Lega, Movimento 5 stelle, center-left.

The left, in particular, found itself in increasing difficulty in facing the dilemma: to privilege employment (ie economic development) even with significant environmental damage? Or the protection of the environment, even if it leads to the cessation of productive activities?

The drama of Taranto

The emblematic case – naturally not the only one – is the ex-Ilva of Taranto.

The plant has a long, tormented history. Inaugurated on 10 April 1965 by the then President of the Republic Giuseppe Saragat, the pole was born with many expectations of relaunching an area in great difficulty as it was Taranto in the early 1960s. And it was a reason for hope and a source of employment for thousands of families. A centrality in the territory, accompanied by the entire society in all its forms. Suffice it to recall an exceptional event: the famous speech by Pope Paul VI, on a pastoral visit to the factory on Christmas 1968.

After a very unsatisfactory privatization by the Riva group, the steelworks is now managed (not acquired) by the ArcelorMittal group, which has over 10,000 employees in Italy, of which 8,277 at the Taranto production site.

The management of the steelworks determines (or has determined so far) two main negative effects. The first, more immediate and tragic, related to occupational safety, which for several years has been joined by the more subtle one regarding the environmental dimension. On the subject of safety at work, in international statistics Italy is reported for its 1,218 reports of fatal injury in 2018 (up by 6.1 percent compared to 2017). However, the crisis that pays particular attention is that related to pollution and its enormous impact on the health of the population.

The list of poisons present today in Taranto and in the most exposed neighborhoods is really impressive, as is the number of deaths "attributable" to the emissions of the steel plant. Already in 2012, on the initiative of Judge Patrizia Todisco and after multiple scientific appraisals it was established that there were as many as 164 deaths "attributable" to the emissions of the steel plant. The concentration of toxic substances is higher in the neighborhoods closest to the chimneys: mortality is quadruple there and hospitalization for heart disease is triple compared to the rest of the city. The tragic history of the interventions, of the missed interventions, of the criticisms, of the complaints is endless.

That the Taranto plant pollutes is not surprising and should not be a novelty. ArcelorMittal itself certifies annual emissions of over 2,000 tons of dust, 8,800 tons of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, 15 tons of benzene and several tons of other pollutants, in full compliance with legal limits. The problem is that chemical and epidemiological experts, appointed at different stages by the judiciary, have ascertained without a doubt that various anti-pollution regulations are not respected and that this has produced serious damage to the health of the inhabitants who live in the neighborhoods close to the steelworks. .

What's more: at the time of the ouster of Riva from the management of the plant, the judiciary had established that between 1995 and 2005 there had been 386 deaths due to emissions from steel mills, accompanied, in the same period, by hundreds of hospital admissions for serious illnesses linked to exposure to numerous pollutants emitted into the atmosphere by the plant: 237 cases of malignant tumors, 247 heart attacks, 937 hospitalizations for respiratory diseases, 17 cases of childhood cancers.

The experts appointed at the time by the prosecutor's office in Taranto calculated a total of 11,550 deaths in seven years (on average 1,650 per year), linked above all to cardiovascular and respiratory causes, and 26,999 hospitalizations, mostly for cardiac, respiratory and cerebrovascular causes. The concentrations of pollutants and the proportion of deaths and patients is very high in the neighborhoods near the industrial area. According to the official data of the «Sentieri» report of the Higher Institute of Health, in 2003-2009 Taranto records (compared to the average in Puglia) a +14 percent mortality rate for men and +8 percent for women. Mortality in the first year of life of children is 20 percent higher. There are also strong differences on tumors and circulatory diseases, with an even +211 percent compared to the Apulian average for pleural mesotheliomas.

The update of the mortality analysis for the 2006-2013 period shows, among residents, excesses of risk, general mortality and for large groups, compared to what is observed in the reference average. In the resident population (men and women) the risk of death for pathologies considered a priori as associated with the specific industrial exposure of the site is also increased, in particular for lung cancer, mesothelioma and respiratory diseases, especially for the acute ones between men and the chronic ones among women. For lung cancer and mesothelioma, the incidence study also confirms the excess observed in mortality and shows increases in incidence for numerous tumor sites (men and women).

The future of the plant

In these hectic days, what appears to be clear about the future of the company is that politics and trade unions want business to continue. But it is also necessary to start with a massive investment program aimed at progressively and rapidly replacing those particularly polluting parts of the plant. And it is necessary to think about the relocation of entire neighborhoods that simply did not have to be where they are today. In the pre-steel industry Taranto the Tamburi district already existed, but with the birth of the Italsider the exponential growth of the built began that does not seem to want to stop.

Meanwhile, technological research on steel production is proceeding and there are already experiments on plants that use less coal and more efficiently. Coal is a fundamental factor in the steel industry because from there it derives, through a chemical-physical process, the carbon coke used as fuel for blast furnaces.

We must start from this point and activate the investments, knowing that it will be a long and very expensive process. It is the direct and indirect occupation of many people and the future of a strategic industry for the country. Only in this way will it be possible, here and elsewhere, to combine development, employment and the environment. |