Pope orders fountains to go dry in solidarity over drought
Water crisis prompts unprecedented measures by Vatican, while France appeals for aid to fight fires
POPE FRANCIS ordered all fountains in the Vatican to go dry yesterday in a show of solidarity with Italians suffering a severe drought that has caused water shortages and crop damage.
It is the first time Vatican City authorities recall being forced to turn off fountains in its gardens and squares, Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, said as he stood in St Peter’s Square near two dry 17th-century fountains.
“This decision is very much in line with the Pope’s thinking on ecology: you can’t waste and sometimes you have to be willing to make a sacrifice,” Mr Burke said.
For 2,000 years, an abundant supply of water has burbled through Rome’s ancient aqueducts, baths and fountains, but the city’s 1.5million inhabitants may be sacrificing water for eight hours a day in alternating neighbourhoods if a proposed water-rationing plan goes into effect on July 28.
The full extent of the water crisis in Italy runs much deeper.
In the industrial heartland of the northern Po River valley, dried out tributaries appear from the air as dozens of sandy squiggles. On the ground, driedout corn fields rustle in the wind alongside parched river beds.
The temporary disappearance of critical tributaries and reservoirs used for irrigation and drinking water are putting crops and industrial output in the usually verdant valley at risk. Italy is the world’s top exporter of processed tomato pastes, sauces and products, and industry officials in Emilia-romagna worry water shortages could disrupt operations.
“Some areas are 90 per cent below the norm, so some of the tomato processing factories are quite worried,” said Lorenzo Mantelli, a technician for the interbranch organisation of tomato processing in northern Italy.
When there is no water from rivers or canals, producers must pump groundwater. But the water table is dropping and salt water from the Adriatic Sea has encroached 12 miles inland as a result, scientists say.
“We have a historic drought in the Po Valley, but also the situation nationally is quite grave,” said Vittorio Marletto, an agricultural meteorologist from the Regional Environmental and Energy Agency of Emilia-romagna. “For years we have seen progressively diminishing precipitation and rising temperatures due to the changing climate. The lack of snowpack in the Apennine mountains to recharge the aquifers is particularly dramatic.”
Because minimum river levels are set by the EU, farmers and public entities in drought-struck areas have had to make dozens of special pumping requests, notifying Brussels that they are dipping below the EU standard for aquatic health of rivers. Some private citizens are making backup plans in case public water supplies dry up, as their rivers have.
“Many people are asking for emergency cisterns to gather what spring water there is,” said Enzo Credali, a construction worker who stopped for refreshment at a roadside food truck near the Mignano Dam after installing one such cistern at a nearby monastery.
In Lake Mignano, in the hills above Parma and Piacenza, authorities have already halted agricultural pumping in order to preserve domestic water for cities downstream. But that is expected to last only another two weeks.
“We’ll just have to use wine,” joked Mr Credali’s companions. “Red wine for drinking. White wine for washing.”
But for the dozen Italian regions that are asking for natural disaster status due to drought, it is no laughing matter, with Italy’s agricultural sector estimated to have lost over €2 billion already.
Drought has also contributed to tinder dry conditions in Mediterranean pine forests, where wildfires have been burning for weeks.
Yesterday, forest fires raged across south-eastern France and Corsica for a second day with one “extremely virulent” blaze near the jet set resort of Saint-tropez.
More than 3,000 hectares (11 square miles) of land along the French Riviera coast, in the mountains behind the upmarket Riviera resorts, and on the Mediterranean island of Corsica have been scorched by the advancing flames.
Eight firefighters and some 15 police officers were hurt in the fires that broke out on Monday.
The French civil security authority has asked the European Union for help and to provide two Canadair planes to contain and extinguish the wildfire.