Water in Sicily
Sicily is the third world of Europe
It has never been so clear as now – Sicily is part of the third world. Images of people shouting and fighting while queuing to get some water from public water fountains are now regular viewing on the Italian nightly news.
The supply of drinking water is another “Italian emergency” – as Italian governments like to call issues they haven’t managed to fix.
But what usually happens in September, after a dry summer, this year has come 4 months early. This time, the evidence is clear and Sicilians are tired of listening the same old excuses. The opposition (left) accuses the centre right government, that in turn blames the past governments. It’s the same old story, but this time does not convince the Sicilians, who have gone onto the streets, not only to find water from the few public fountains that work, but also to protest and express their anger to their longtime enemy – the government.
The reason why the citizens of Sicily are so angry is that there is actually plenty of water in Sicily for farming and domestic use. But the public water system loses 50% of the water it carries because it is antiquated, rusted and virtually irredeemable as nobody has ever mapped out the system. Plumbers use their memory to find the water mains.
Water theft is endemic even when water is plentiful. People steal water from the mains to fill their swimming pools and water their gardens. Whole towns steal water from other towns’ dams and it is nearly impossible to control the theft. The army randomly patrols the main pipes but have had little success in curbing the water bandits.
So now, farmers have stopped their tractors and presented their half dead of thirst animals in the main Sicilian piazzas. And the rest of Sicily has joined the protesters to show their outrage to the rest of Italy via the national TV cameras.
A housewife has chained herself to a dry fountain to ask for some water for her little kids – she has run out of money to buy the water to give to her children to drink, let alone to cook and wash. There has been no water in some towns for 28 days. When it comes, usually at night, Sicilians have to wake up and try to fill as many water tanks as possible. Most of the time the pressure is not enough to reach even the second floor in houses. Closed restaurants all have the same sign outside their doors: “no tap water inside”.
Houses in Sicily typically have huge water tanks on balconies and terraces – in Caltanissetta nobody builds a house without a 100,000 litre water tanks in the basement, but they are all empty now.
Corner shops are now filled with signs: “water for sale”. It comes from private wells and it’s not drinkable – but it is good for washing – at least.
But the real business is the unlicensed water carrying trucks that fill their tanks from a private well to sell from house to house. In Agrigento everybody is forced to buy that water even though there is no guarantee that it is drinkable. People are now so desperate for water they are calling the water operators mobile phones like drug addicts call their dealers.
Moreover, in the last 50 years nobody has had the initiative, or courage, to investigate the vast sums of money paid by city councils for maintenance of the dams. In the 1980s engineers under contract to the government started to build the biggest dam in Sicily that would have solved the most severe water crisis. But after 15 years and 100 million euros, the dam has not issued a single drop. In the same period an additional 675 million euros have been spent in Sicily to solve the water problem. Sicily has now 14 big dams, which contain only a quarter of the water they should store. But the region, where water shortage has always been a problem supports seven different mineral water companies.
The police and the Italian secret service have now started to investigate and found that the mafia is involved. No surprise – water has been one of the first businesses of the Sicilian Mafia. The Sicilian Mafiosi say: “Water feeds more than food”.