Hydrogeological instability, in the Pnrr 2.5 billion. But nothing was spent – Corriere.it

Zero. Like the money spent so far from Pnrr funds against hydrogeological instability. Europe has allocated a loan of around 2.5 billion to Italy for this type of intervention between now and 2026. Funds headed by the Ministry of the Environment, resources on call based on the projects presented by the regions which in turn allocate them pro-rata to the Municipalities once the priorities have been identified. Sophisticated interventions that require punctual planning. We are talking about containment engineering works such as lamination tanks, expansion tanks, river dredging, the containment of landslide edges, which require hyper-specialized technical structures that local authorities rarely have.

A jumble of projects without any central, much less regional planning. The former Deputy Minister for the Environment, Roberto Morassut, recounts the gallery of errors of recent years. He had the delegation against hydrogeological instability. Father of a reform that remained a dead letter. Decree 77 of the Pnrr, which would have simplified the expropriation procedures to favor demolition interventions which should be entrusted to the prefects rather than to the mayors conditioned by local ties and long-term consensus. With regional priority assessment units and a report card for the regions. A license of merit for those who spend the funds and those who don’t and therefore default and to whom the funds should be stolen, says Morassut. Everything stopped. Like the creation of provincial task forces made up of engineers, surveyors, land morphology experts: missing figures on the market. Figures who are already in hiding in universities, due to the lack of social recognition they bring with them. And then too low salaries in the public sector to attract the most talented. Inflation does the rest. Because the cost of materials has risen beyond measure. And the construction companies that are supposed to do those jobs stay away. The Minister Fitto invites us to distinguish between money pledged and money actually spent. Because once again the lexicon is substance. And most of the resources set aside by the Municipalities for these projects end up enriching the accounting of deserted tenders. More than someone points out the unfair competition of the 110% Superbonus which in the last three years has shifted the demand for works to the residential-civil one by engaging the few companies (and the few remaining skills) in less sophisticated works from an environmental and certainly with less risk of litigation.

And then the absence with which the legislator has regulated land consumption. Privileging new works over the maintenance of old ones, also avoiding clarifying the plethora of incentives concerning building renovations, he points out Stefano Ciafani, president of Legambiente. The latest short circuit was reported by Alessandro Trigila, Ispra researcher at the head of the landslide phenomena department, who denounces the difficulty in understanding how much (and how) the regions communicate requests for funding for interventions against instability to the Ministry of the Environment . A Decree of the Presidency of the Council of November 2021 provides for it. Not implemented.