(Finance) – 36% of Italian lakes and 37% of Italian seas are polluted. This is what emerged from the Legambiente balance sheet presented today in Rome at the end of the summer campaigns Schooner Green And Schooner of the Lakes 2024 – now in their 38th and 19th editions respectively – both created with the main partnerships of CONOU, Novamont, and the media partnership of Nuova Ecologia, and with ANEV and Renexia as additional partners for Goletta Verde.
The two campaigns this summer monitored the health status of the Mediterranean and of the basins lakes thanks to over 200 volunteers from regional and Legambiente clubs active in sampling, also bringing to the forefront the issue of offshore wind power, which represents a great opportunity for the country, and at the same time denouncing with a series of blitzes also the attacks by illegal concrete, speculation, building abuses, drills and useless works, the fires and then the great drought emergency with a blitz on Lake Pergusa.
The result is that out of 394 points sampled between June, July and early August by Goletta Verde and Goletta dei Laghi 2024 of Legambiente in 19 regions, 36% were judged overall to be “over the limit” with 101 points that received the rating of “Heavily polluted” and 39 of “Polluted”. Of particular concern is the state of health of the seawhere on average there is one polluted point every 76 km of coast, and where the trend of points over the limit is slowly growing, going from 31% in 2022, to 36% in 2023 and up to 37% this year.
River mouths, canals and waterways that flow into the sea or lake are confirmed as critical points. 47% of the withdrawals overall (185 out of 394) of the Golettes, in fact, occurred at the mouths of rivers and in 59% of cases the judgement was “over the limit” (109 out of 185). Better results were obtained from samples taken in lake and marine waters both in areas with a greater influx of bathers and in proximity to critical points: only 14% of the samples received a negative judgement based on the analysis of the Golettes (30 points out of 208).
Also new this year 18 special observers (14 along the coast and 4 in the Maggiore, Orta, Trasimeno and Bolsena lakes) monitored by Goletta Verde and dei Laghi. These are historically critical points where Legambiente, between March and June, repeated on average 3 additional samples to the official one planned during the passage of the campaigns. Out of 45 samples, 32 along the coast and 13 in the lakes, 69% showed concentrations above the legal limits even in the months preceding the summer period. Legambiente will evaluate whether there are grounds for filing complaints with the competent authorities and requesting greater monitoring and controls.