"Mose ready in 2021, will avoid further damage to Venice. But maintenance is already needed"

While Venice is in the midst of a high water emergency, the debate over the Mose is reignited, and the questions that arise about the work that should save the city from the tides are many. If it had already been operational, would the water stop at a height of 1.87 meters? And why, after the 2003 foundation stone, are the works still not finished? But above all, what part of the work is already standing in what conditions? The fear that it will rust in the expectation of commissioning is not unfounded. "We will deliver, by contract, the work on December 31, 2021. As for the systems already in place, we are not talking about deterioration, but certainly the first bulkheads that were set up in 2014 need maintenance", they explain to HuffPost from Consorzio Venezia Nuova, which deals with the realization of the work. To ensure the future functioning of the barriers already in the water, funds are needed, others compared to those already foreseen for the construction of the work. "The appropriations for the Mose are there, what may be needed are other money for the start-up, for the management of the work" and, precisely, to avoid that the plants age before being fully operational.

Salvini also refers to the money, which announced that he will propose an amendment to the maneuver: "The work of the Moses is fundamental even if it does not concern the area of ​​San Marco, on which we must make other reflections, but realize that the maneuver comes out with 100 millions of euros to put a work into operation rather than holding it ”.

But if the plant had been in operation, would Venice have been saved from yet another disaster? "If the Moses had been active, this year but as in previous years, it would have come into operation when the water reached a height of 110 meters and, consequently, there would have been no damage due to exceptional tides", still explain from the Consorzio Venezia Nuova. But the construction site, it was said, remains open: "We are doing a series of tests, to understand how the bulkheads are raised, how much water flows out and how. We started making them in the spring and we will continue next year as well. In 2020 we expect to finish installing the latest facilities and next year we will start testing the Mose even with high water, "they say. The tests will come only after, in 2021. For November 4 last, one of these tests was scheduled, but it was postponed: “In the previous test, on the same barrier, the technicians recorded vibrations that they did not expect. Now they will have to understand if it was a normal phenomenon or if there are interventions to do ". During these long years there have been slowdowns several times, but from the Consortium they assure that the works are proceeding and that by the end of 2021 everything will be ready.

And the Mayor Luigi Brugnaro refers precisely to Mose: “Venice continues to be distressed by the exceptional high waters. Last year, the same year – he moved – We ask the government to participate and to understand at what level is the organization of the Mose, because here we really risk not making it anymore. Tomorrow we will ask for a state of calamity. We ask that they give us a hand because the costs are many. We are here waiting, unfortunately we have reached a new negative record ”.

After the words of Salvini, Italia Viva also intervenes on the subject. The Venetian deputy Sara Moretto writes: "Today is the day of emergency, but tomorrow it will necessarily be the day of responsibility and politics cannot stop at solidarity or at announcements, like those of Salvini who realizes now Venice after more than a year of government in which nothing has done. After the scandals that accompanied the Mose, still incomplete, the citizens deserve concreteness and perspective. The specificity of Venice requires concrete actions: with the Renzi government – it claims – a pact was signed for Venice and then the special law was refinanced. These resources are still firm due to the inertia of the previous Minister of Infrastructure. In recent months, Venice has been the only protagonist of a debate on the Big Ships, which is necessary, but still without a solution, and on the landing fee, which has not yet been applied. Or we understand that the city needs a policy that looks to the next 50 years, that takes responsibility for its own choices, that puts new solutions in a spirit of collaboration and not partisan division, or – he concludes – Venice will really risk to sink. The Venetians have already done it, now it's up to the institutions to roll up their sleeves and Italia Viva will do its part ”.

The emergency will be taken to the next CDM: “The emergency situation that has arisen in Venice in these hours, the most serious since 1966, is directly followed by the Government, which will face it in the next CDM, to assess the necessary and urgent interventions that protect the city, its lagoon and the communities that live there ", write the Venetian undersecretaries Pier Paolo Baretta and Andrea Martella. "For us – continue the two undersecretaries – it is, personally, a priority commitment, which we will carry on directly and operationally, with the institutions, starting with the Municipality, and the citizens.
A new national and local cohesion is needed around this fragile but essential heritage of humanity; we need works and resources; it serves the will that has characterized our history ".

But what is Mose? Its purpose is to separate the Venice lagoon from the Adriatic Sea and should prevent flooding during high tide. Once completed, it should consist of a total of 78 movable bulkheads installed in the three lagoon inlets: Lido, Malamocco and Chioggia.

The works for its realization started in 2003, when he was president of the Berlusconi Council, but have not yet been completed. In 2014, the Consorzio Venezia Nuova (Cvn) – concessionaire of the Ministry of Infrastructures for carrying out the works – was a police station, as several of its members had been involved in the investigations of the magistracy for having received illegal funds and had bargained the penalty . Since then, several commissioners have followed.

During the hearing at the Chamber of 26 July 2018 the engineer Francesco Ossola, extraordinary administrator of the CNV, had declared that "to date, the works are completed for a percentage of 93 percent".

The work was conceived in the 1980s to defend Venice and its lagoon from water over 110 centimeters high. The hydraulic system of movable bulkheads that rest invisibly on the bottom of the port mouths and rise at high tide, filled with compressed air is joined by the operational headquarters at the Arsenale, which since 2012 is able to provide forecasts on the weather and on the tides with a three-day advance.

Among the problems that emerged in these years of use of the Mose is the artificial reshaping of the port mouths, which interrupts the natural hydrogeologue and ecosystems with the lagoon.