Genoa Dam: Mayor Bucci meets super-consultant Silva but does not change his mind
After a few days ago the president of the Port System Authority of Genoa Paolo Emilio Signorini announced that he had received the positive judgment decree regarding the environmental compatibility of the preliminary project of the new breakwater of the port of Genoa, the Ministry of Ecological Transition has restored, more than a month after the hacker attack, the related site, publishing the document.
In addition to the already known ones with respect to those of the Ministry of Culture, the ok to the Environmental Impact Assessment (here the decree) is conditional on the expressed by the Mite (here in detail), which are 8, of which 5 will already be complied with with the design executive – to correct or integrate the design of technical and economic feasibility (Pfte) – “before the start of the works”.
One of the most important concerns “the geotechnical model on which the preliminary design choices are based”, which, according to the Via Commission, “appears inadequate and may need profound revisions”, being characterized by “approximations” and ” inconsistencies “. Observations not dissimilar to those of Piero Silva, the hydraulic engineer and university professor with 41 years of international experience “who resigned in March – in his words – from the role of Technical Director of the PMC group of Rina Consulting” in contrast to the Genoese port authority on and proposals for amendments to the Pfte presented between July 2021 and the first months of 2022. Rina, with regard to his assignment, specified that it was a consultancy activity for the Project Management Consulting (PMC) observations but “he is not an employee, covers or has never held any position in the company, much less those of the Technical Director or ‘supervisor’ of the New Genoa Dam “and who spoke” on a personal basis “on the question
Silva, as a document revealed in recent weeks by SHIPPINGITALY, has drawn up a summary to respond to the “request of a qualified group of Genoese port actors to explain the reasons for my resignation” and illustrate the corrections that he believes would allow the project to be saved and build the dam on time and at the expected costs. Last Friday, however, a meeting between Silva and the mayor Marco Bucci (who is also the extraordinary commissioner for the port works program in which the new dam itself), propitiated precisely by the interest of part of the Genoese port community, closed every opening for the revision of the project and induced the engineer to make his report public (you can find it here).
The main problem pointed out by Silva lies precisely in the geotechnics of the Pfte, which means that the “technical feasibility is not guaranteed”. Problems in particular are “the large volume of rocks needed, additionally coming from very distant quarries” and “the realization at -50 meters of a consolidation of the seabed (necessary due to the presence of a thickness of 10 to 25 meters of clayey silt to practically zero consistency) with ballast columns ”, an operation never attempted in the world. Together with the “unbalanced layout” (whose main problems are the non-parallel “orientation” between dam and canal and the double access that will force “cumbersome” maneuvers and evolutions) there is a risk of launching into “a project that is prohibitive in terms of costs execution times “.
For the moment, the identity of the five port operators remains confidential who, worried by Silva’s considerations, supported him and supported the meeting with Bucci, even if the interview released yesterday by the vice president of Conftrasporto, Gian Enzo Duci, to the local television broadcaster Telenord reveals one of the names he has carefully read (and perhaps supported) the study of the super-consultant: “Some recent analyzes worry the port community that times may not be respected. It would be advisable for Signorini to pay a little more attention to some unclear elements of the design “.
Lastly, as a substantial part of Silva’s report, it should be noted that it is dedicated to the possible design alternative (based, in a nutshell, on the construction of the dam on a depth of -30 meters), summarized in the image on the page. Two access channels, but organized in a very different way (one of only 60 meters for tourism, the other of 300 meters, parallel to the new dam, up to a circle of 800m from which all the routes branch off in a linear way towards the docks), with the construction along the dam of a new terminal of 1,200m of quay and 12 hectares of yard, where it is possible to “possibly place strategic activities such as berths for small ships of chemical products and deposits (such as those of Carmagnani and Superba) or a Smart LNG Terminal ”, to be connected“ at the Somalia Bridge through underground pipelines and via an opening bridge for rail and road access ”.
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