Water infrastructure, 4.5 billion planned and not spent in Sicily

In Sicily, in the decade 2010-2020, interventions for the improvement of water infrastructures were activated for a total value of 4.878 billion but only 7.5% of these resources resulted in works actually completed, with an expenditure of approximately 365.8 million with an actual annual per capita expenditure of 6.7 euros (compared to 88.3 euros per capita that remained only on paper).

It is a passage from the report presented during the first edition of the Forum Acqua Sicilia, organized by Legambiente Sicilia in Agrigento: "The water crisis that hit Sicily in 2024, which has effectively become a hotspot of climate change, has made the inadequacy of the infrastructure and systems for collecting, distributing and managing water evident - write the representatives of Legambiente -. This is a shortage that weighs above all on the shoulders of hundreds of thousands of citizens forced to deal with severe water rationing, and on the regional agricultural sector, which in 2024 suffered a net economic loss estimated at three billion euros due to the drought, combined with a drastic drop in production: -80% in the production of olive oil and peaks of up to 100% in the production of cereals, fodder and wheat". This year the situation does not seem to have improved much: "Apart from the better condition of the Ancipa reservoir, almost at its maximum level, the other reservoirs for drinking purposes, essential for supplies to Western Sicily, are all either in the same conditions as in June 2024 or even worse. Of particular note is the quantity stored in the Gargia and Poma dams, which is almost 12 Mmc below," the report states.

In recent years, investments in the water sector in the short and medium term - including those already planned, such as those envisaged by the PNRR - amount to a total of approximately two billion. These resources finance interventions ranging from potabilization and distribution to network maintenance and purification. Among these funds, the following are worth mentioning: 230 million euros allocated through the ERDF 2021-2027 program for the integrated water service, assigned to the Sicilian Ato following the approval of the nine area plans; approximately 360 million from the PNRR and the PNISSI; over 1.2 billion still to be allocated for future interventions. At the regional level, 100 million have also been allocated for the purchase of three mobile desalination plants and the related supply works, in addition to a multi-year plan of over 250 million, currently being implemented by Siciliacque, for the strengthening of regional water networks.

"Reviewing the institutional architecture of the system - says Tommaso Castronovo, president of Legambiente Sicilia - is certainly the first problem to be addressed through the creation of a single and integrated governance of water, so that all Sicilian citizens start from equal conditions. In order to identify an optimal area, it is necessary that this be equipped with all those characteristics that allow for the application of a single tariff, also comparable with that of other neighboring areas".

The picture of the situation of regional water infrastructures, Legambiente reiterates, remains critical. Sicily has 46 large and medium-sized reservoirs, with a total theoretical capacity of more than 1.1 billion cubic meters, of which over 360 million are intended for drinking or mixed drinking-hydroelectric use. The management of these basins is entrusted to a variety of public and private entities: from Siciliacque, a supra-area manager, to ENEL, from the Land Reclamation Consortiums to Drar. A fragmented system that often suffers from serious management deficiencies. This is demonstrated by the data on the silting up of numerous reservoirs, a direct effect of poor maintenance and the absence of fundamental periodic interventions, such as mud removal operations. Added to this are the lack of testing, neglected intake and maneuvering infrastructures and emblematic cases such as that of the Trinità di Delia dam, in the Castelvetrano area, emptied due to the failure to verify its seismic resistance.