Mose under extraordinary maintenance, the movement of 78 sluice gates is underway
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The first “grasshopper” – this is the name of the special boats created specifically to manage the operation – concluded the “uncoupling” maneuver on the afternoon of 5 July, at the mouth of Treporti, after 14 consecutive hours of work to withdraw from the lift from the sea the first sluice gate of the Mose, the system of mobile barriers that protect Venice and its lagoon from high water. Thus began the maintenance operations of this monumental infrastructure, which required years and years of planning and construction, amid controversies, errors and judicial inquiries, and an investment of over 6 billion euros.
Continuous cycle operations
Given the size and complexity of the work, the activities for its maintenance (for which 63 million euros are foreseen per year up to 2034) cannot be outdone: they consist in the uncoupling, removal and movement of the sluice gates (in all 78) that make up the four giant dams placed at the inlets of Treporti, San Niccolò, Malamocco and Chioggia, in order to transport them to the mainland, in the industrial area of Marghera, where they will be cleaned, monitored and possibly repaired, and then repositioned in water.
A continuous cycle operation, which involves moving two elements at a time, which began just yesterday. “We are still completing the work on the Mose, but we have already started maintenance and cleaning of the first sluice gates, those of Treporti, which have been in the water for ten years now”, explains the extraordinary commissioner for the Mose, Elisabetta Spitz. Once the control, refurbishment and cleaning activities have been completed, the gate removed yesterday will be brought back to sea in September. «But it won’t return to the same position from which it was taken – specifies Spitz -: it will replace another gate, which in turn will be released and moved for maintenance. There are two reinforcing gates, stored in a special area in Marghera. Therefore the structure withdrawn is immediately replaced by the reserve one».
Complex puzzle game
A sort of interlocking game which will allow, in the space of a few years, to complete the operation for all 78 retractable elements that make up the Mose, and then start all over again. The second gate of Treporti should be withdrawn on 10 August. The maintenance of the Treporti barrier, which requires a complex technical operation, was entrusted by the government to Fincantieri last December. After the summer, tenders will also start for the other three inlets. “Today a new path begins for Mose – comments Spitz -: the beginning of a fully operational management, of a normality that will gradually become more and more efficient”.
Exactly 20 years have passed since the start of work on this engineering work, which came into operation in 2020 and has since been raised 50 times for defensive reasons (in the event of high water) and 180 times to carry out periodic functional tests. “In these three years, the Mose has shown that it works, safeguarding the lagoon territory and the inhabited center of Venice from high tides exceeding 130 centimeters – says the commissioner -. Just think of the one of 22 November: if the Mose hadn’t come into operation, the damage would have been higher than in 2019″.
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