For months now, Italy’s Basilicata region has been facing an unprecedented water crisis, with water being rationed to citizens at different times of the day. The paradox is that Basilicata is the region with the most water sources in the south, considering that it represents a quarter of the entire southern water basin and also supplies water to other southern regions.
For the website Rivolutione.Red, Enrico Duranti interviewed Lidia Ronzano, spokeswoman for the Regional Coordination of Public Water in Basilicata, and comments below on the risks of privatising Italy’s water.
What are the causes of this water crisis?
Certainly climate change has played a role, but it is not the only culprit. There has been a serious problem with the management of water over the last fifty years, which has led to the situation we have today. A brief history of water management in Basilicata is needed to understand the mismanagement and the reasons for the crisis. Basilicata is a very water-rich region and in the last fifty years it was decided to build storage dams. The structure that managed the water catchment for all these years, until it was put into operation on 31 December 2023, was EIPLI (Ente per lo sviluppo dell’irrigazione e la trasformazione fondiaria in Puglia, Lucania e Irpinia).
Seven reservoirs have been built in Basilicata, but over the years they have been poorly managed and not seriously maintained. The crisis that has arisen in the province of Potenza is due to the crisis of the Camastra dam, which supplies drinking water not only to the provincial capital but also to 28 other municipalities in a basin with a population of around 140,000. The Camastra dam has not been cleaned of the sludge that has accumulated over the years, so that its nominal capacity of 30 million cubic metres of water has been reduced to 9 million, with an accumulation of 10-12 million cubic metres of sludge at the bottom. If we add to this the drought, we can understand what the crisis of recent months has meant, with rationing of the supply service by time slots. In one of the most seismically active regions of Italy, this has contributed to the emergency situation: the National Directorate of Dams has even ordered a reduction in the amount of water released for safety reasons.
What has been done to resolve the emergency?
The water shortage has recently reached twelve hours a day, although the situation has improved somewhat in recent weeks as the rains have replenished the reservoirs. At least they guaranteed a few extra hours of supply over the Christmas holidays. In October, the government declared a state of emergency and a civil protection decree appointed regional president Vito Bardi as emergency commissioner. The decree set out urgent tasks, including finding other sources and wells to collect water to deal with the crisis at the Camastra reservoir. But nothing was done. In the end, nothing was looked for and it was hastily decided to resort to taking water from the Basento River.
So they basically provided water from a river as drinking water, without carrying out a serious study?
Yes, but there is more. First of all, we need to understand the context of the Basento River, especially upstream of the water intake. This river flows through the industrial area of Tito Scalo, where there is an site of national interest that has been awaiting reclamation for years. This is the former Daramic site, one of the most polluted sites in Italy, which has been the subject of an environmental disaster investigation. On this site, trichloroethylene was found at levels 270,000 times above the norm. Then, in the same industrial area, there is the former Liquichimica, which still has phosphogypsum tanks containing radioactive materials such as plutonium and radium 226.
After the Tito Scalo industrial area, the Basento flows into the Potenza industrial area, where Italsider is located and where there have been spills. The Basento also receives water from the Potenza water treatment plant, and only then does it reach the catchment area set up by Bardi. Of course, they keep assuring us that everything is up to standard, but the minimum criterion required by law to identify drinking water has not been met.
What should they have done?
The law requires that catchments with more than 30,000 users be sampled for twelve consecutive months, with one sample per month. This was not done. Within a few weeks, potability was declared with few analyses and, absurdly, the analyses were carried out to coincide with the start of the works.
In order to choose a source of drinking water, the health of the spring or river must be known, and this must be studied in the Regional Water Protection Plan, which in theory should have been drawn up by 2008 and revised every six years. None of this has ever happened.
How have the citizens reacted?
Citizens are furious, and committees are springing up in all the affected municipalities. Despite the assurances, nobody is drinking the Basento water, which is only used for flushing and washing. There is so much anger that they are now looking for alternative sources of water to the Basento, and the Marsico Nuovo area in the Agri valley has been chosen.
Is that where the oil is being extracted?
Yes, it is. Seven springs have been identified in the ENI area, one of which, in Monaco Santino, is very close to the ‘Pergola 1’ oil well, which they want to put into production and which is currently undergoing an environmental impact assessment.
These are water-rich areas. They are karstic areas under which the Agri and Sele river basins flow. In the environmental assessment, ENI is asking to build an oil pipeline that passes near Monaco Santino, the new source identified by the region. The problem is that there is no water protection plan and no protected areas. The Monaco spring could provide a good flow of water to deal with the emergency, but it is totally threatened by the oil projects.
What happens now?
Now many municipalities want to get rid of the water board and go it alone, find their own sources, as does Puglia, which depends on Lucanian water sources.
They want to use this emergency to set a precedent that can be used in similar situations in other regions in the future. A precedent in the management of the emergency and a precedent in the identification of water sources, without respecting the rules for drinking water. A precedent for water management when the government wants to privatise and commercialise it.
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Following the bankruptcy of EIPLI, the management of the Camastra dam was taken over by a new company, Acque del sud Spa, a subsidiary of the Ministry of the Economy, at the behest of the Meloni government. Acque del sud spa has opened up 30% of its capital to private funds, while the four regions involved have only a 5% share.
In practice, we are talking about the risk of privatisation of public water, despite the 2011 referendum in which the majority voted that water should not end up in private hands. Years of failure and mismanagement, as in the case of the Camastra dam, have created the ideal climate for privatisation. Lucania’s water could become a nice source of profit for private individuals, obviously to the detriment of the citizens. In practice, they will give us river water to drink, without any serious study of the pollutants, and meanwhile the private sector will make huge profits.
It is no coincidence that the Acque del Sud industrial plan aims to find new partners throughout the South of Italy. All the regions of the South are experiencing either a water scarcity or a serious water crisis. It is not only Acque del Sud Spa that is opening up to the private sector. The Meloni government is also looking to privatise companies that manage water distribution networks. This is the case of Acquedotto Pugliese Spa, which is currently under full public management and is attracting many multinationals, including the Suez Group. Acquedotto Pugliese manages the largest water distribution network in Europe, serving a catchment area of 4 million users, and has now entered into a partnership with Acea Spa, part of the Suez Group, to become an industrial partner of Acque del Sud Spa, with the aim of relaunching the management of hydraulic infrastructures and reservoirs, which in Basilicata alone have a potential capacity of one billion cubic metres of water per year for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes.
We are facing a very strong attack on public water and the right to water, an essential good that the Meloni government wants to commodify. In the face of the effects of climate change, water is becoming a precious commodity that must be protected, and any process of privatisation is a threat to the population.
For the capitalists, water is just another raw material to be hoarded and exploited for profit. There is not only water to drink, but also water for intensive agriculture or for the oil industry (as is well known in Basilicata), and water to be used in the hydrogen sector, on which the government is betting heavily. This is where Basilicata and the whole of southern Italy are in serious danger, because the “hydrogen corridor” envisaged by the Mattei plan will require huge amounts of water, which will obviously be taken away from the communities. Basilicata itself is a candidate to become the central hub of hydrogen development.
In spite of the silence on the subject, the situation in Basilicata teaches us a lot, and this is precisely why a serious reflection is needed, which cannot be limited to plugging holes of mismanagement. It is not enough to say that water remains public. Under capitalism, even public management may not be in favour of the users, but may follow the logic of the market. As Lidia Ronzano also explained:
“The problem is not only privatisation, but also public management of the market. Just look at what is happening with Acquedotto Pugliese, which has opened up its management to the rules of the market.”
Water management cannot therefore be left in the hands of a state bureaucracy that is indifferent to the problems of the population and inextricably linked to the interests of private companies. A bureaucracy that, in 2025, will not even be able to guarantee citizens free access to drinking water.
It is certainly necessary to fight against any privatisation process, but at the same time to fight for the management and control of water resources by workers and local people, through democratically elected and empowered committees. This is the only way to put the needs of the community back at the centre and to avoid disastrous situations like the one in Basilicata.