VENICE IN PERIL (LIVESAY/MARTELLI) -- PBS NHWE
JULY 2017
For
decades, scientists have warned the Italian city of Venice has been sinking. At
first, it was the pumping of groundwater (to drink?) that caused the city to
settle into the Earth. Now, the problem is accelerating due to regular
flooding that’s become more severe due to climate change. In tonight’s
Signature Segment, NewsHour Weekend Special
Correspondent Christopher Livesay reports on the risk
and Italy’s plan to mitigate it. This story is a part of Peril and Promise, our
ongoing series on the Challenge of Climate Change.
Joan Martelli: Producer, Writer, Editor, Camera
Christopher Livesay: Correspondent
Mark Brewer: Camera
Tom Ritzenthaler: Associate Producer
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Venice is a world class
wonder. A city built on more than 100 small islands, connected by a maze of
bridges and canals. The largest is the Grand Canal with its famous Rialto
Bridge. Over the centuries, Venice has stood the test of time, but today this
island city is under siege like never before...from “rising” seas and a “flood”
of tourists.
MONICA CHOJNACKA: The fact that we are still waiting for any kind
of solution of these problems of tourism and flooding is deeply depressing.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Historian Monica Chojnacka was born in Venice and proudly calls this city her
home.
MONICA
CHOJNACKA: That was the step you got
on when you got off of your gondola or your boat to get into the house.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: But she’s concerned about
its future.
MONICA
CHOJNACKA: This is
a step that, of course, when it was built was never designed to be submerged in
water. Now it’s always underwater even in this relatively low tide.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: “Acqua
Alta,” meaning high water, has always been a fact of life here. Several times a
year, high tides and storm surges flood the city, especially the famous Piazza
San Marco. The worst flood occurred in November 1966, when the Venice lagoon
rose more than six feet above sea level.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: After the deluge, the city
designed an alert system which has kept pace with the times.
MONICA CHOJNACKA: What happens is we are
alerted via an app as well as text messages and in addition, we have sirens
that are blasted through the city.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Those
warning sirens are coordinated from this command center on the Grand Canal. A
siren is followed by pitched whistles. One whistle means about 12% of the city
will be flooded, water is ankle deep, and shopkeepers barricade their doors.
Two whistles mean the water will be higher. Almost one-third of the city will
be flooded.
MONICA CHOJNACKA: Three means run for the
hills, because it’s going to be high!
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Venetians generally take “Acqua Alta” in stride. Like the manager of the Gran Caffe Lavena, Massimo Milanese. He showed us pictures of his cafe
during a recent flood. Tables and chairs sitting in the water.
MASSIMO
MILANESE: See the special doors
here.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Like others in the Piazza,
he has flood doors to protect his business. He took us behind the cafe, where those
flood doors are stored.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: So the water can actually
get this high?
MASSIMO
MILANESE: The maximum that I saw --
this.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Whoa. So just a couple of
inches more, and this would have been useless.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: He also keeps waterproof
boots on hand for his employees.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Acqua Alta events are usually less than boot high, last just a few
hours, and the city cleans up and goes back to normal. But floods also eat away
at the soft, permeable bricks that sit above the foundations of the buildings.
Over time, Venetians have raised their doorways and in some cases abandoned
their ground floors. But the flooding is getting worse as the water level in the Adriatic Sea and Venice
Lagoon rises due to climate change. The sea level alone has risen five and half
inches since 1900, according to city officials.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: The Italian government does
have a plan to protect Venice. It’s called the MOSE project. Conceived in the
1970s, it’s a series of 78 underwater gates secured to the floor of the Venice
lagoon. During especially high tides, they will be pumped with air and rise to
the surface to block rising water from reaching the city. Four giant barriers
across three inlets are scheduled to be operational by 2019.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Is MOSE able to defend
Venice?
DARIO
BERTI: Yes, MOSE will be able to
protect the city of Venice from exceptionally high water. That means water that
exceeds three-and-half feet above sea level.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: So this is what the gate
looks like when it’s down?
NATSOT
BERTI: Yes, this is the gate when
it is standing on the bottom of the inlet.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Dario Berti
is engineering and production manager with the company building the MOSE
project. Construction began in 2003, testing, in 2013.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: If this is the first
project of its kind, how can you be so sure that it’s going to work?
DARIO
BERTI: Well, this is the result
of years and years of planning and experiments on models, trials in tanks. It’s
been tested in all possible conditions. So, we’re certain it will work.
MONICA CHOJNACKA: One question about the MOSE
project, these seawalls is whether it will be effective?
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: If it
will be effective? They’ve spent billions of Euros on it. Shouldn’t it be
effective?
MONICA CHOJNACKA: Yes, the latest estimates
are between 5 and 6 billion Euros having been spent on this project. Certainly
a portion of that money has not gone towards the building of this project but
rather towards payoffs to local and regional politicians and business folk.
Three years ago, about 35 of our leading citizens were arrested along with our
mayor.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: The
mayor of Venice was arrested?
MONICA CHOJNACKA: The mayor of Venice was
arrested as well on charges of corruption connected to this project.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: A verdict on the case of
that former mayor is expected this fall. Considering the corruption scandals,
environmental scientist Jane Da Mosto says the
Italian government should have gone back and reviewed the engineering and
scientific basis for MOSE.
JANE DA
MOSTO: There hasn’t been any kind
of technical review about whether or not they are doing the right thing, and
that I do find seriously alarming.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Da Mosto
is executive director of a nonprofit group called “We are here Venice,” which
is trying to raise awareness of the challenges facing Venice.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: So there’s a lot of concern
among Venetians that the work at MOSE isn’t being done properly?
JANE DA
MOSTO: It’s not just amongst
Venetians. Articles have been published in national newspapers, international
journals. They have a problem about sand going into the indentations in the
lagoon floor, where the panels then have to lie back down again. They found
that the hinges, they’ve started corroding much sooner than they thought they
would. They also keep delaying when they say it’s going to be ready. Not a good
sign.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: MOSE engineers say they are
addressing the issues of sand obstructing the barriers and of rusting hinges.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: But Luca Zaggia, from the Institute of Marine Sciences National
Research Council of Italy, warns assuming they work, there’s a limit to how many
times the defensive flood barriers can be deployed before they damage the
lagoon.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: How many times can you
raise the flood barriers in a year?
LUCA
ZAGGIA: We say 10 times a year is
the best amount. Maybe 15 or 20 but no more.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: But the climate is
changing. The water level is rising. What happens 20 years from now, 30 years
from now? Is that still going to be the case?
LUCA
ZAGGIA: No. Sure. We will close
more frequently. Up 100 times a year.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: 100 times a year? What is
that going to do to the lagoon?
LUCA
ZAGGIA: It will be a terrible
disaster for the ecosystem. Stagnation first and then contamination and growth
of microalgae.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: It sounds very harmful.
LUCA
ZAGGIA: Yeah, it is. You can have
massive deaths of fishes in summer.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: Most tourists are oblivious
to the barrier system and seriousness of the flooding problem. They are busy
taking selfies, marveling at the beauty of this car-free city, or trying to
escape from the summer heat, like these tourists from Ireland we found in the
shade of the tower in Piazza San Marco. They had no idea, until we told them,
this plaque marks the historic flood of 1966, when the water level was so high,
their children would have been neck deep.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: The 25 million tourists who
visit every year are actually another major threat to Venice. Souvenir shops
and high-end boutiques catering to them have replaced vegetable stands,
hardware stores, and other shops necessary for daily life. Housing prices have
soared with speculators buying up property to rent to tourists. As a result,
Venetians are moving away. At the end World War Two, there were 150,000
full-time residents of Venice. Now, there are only 54,000.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: On some days, there are
actually more tourists than residents, and that upsets Venetians like Matteo Secchi.
MATTEO
SECCHI: The Venetian way of life is
at risk, simply because we’re vanishing. There’s always fewer of us. We’re
losing our culture. Because when a Venetian leaves the city, he doesn’t just
leave the city, he leaves a way of life and culture.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: In this fragile city, some
residents say huge tourist cruise ships are making matters worse. Tommaso Cacciari is the founder of the group “No Grandi Navi,” meaning ‘No Large Ships.” It wants to ban
large cruise ships from entering the Venice lagoon.
TOMMASO
CACCIARI: There’s a mass amount of
water that pushes back and forth. It’s called siphoning. It’s like an accordion
that sucks the foundation of the city. There’s no concrete under here. There’s
mud, soft material that gets sucked out.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: This pier, he says, rebuilt
seven years ago is already showing signs of damage from the cruise ships.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: When they pass by, they
create this huge pressure that basically sucks the sediment out from underneath
us and actually lowers the foundation. You can see it really right before your
eyes here with these bricks here.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: The cruise ships employ
five thousand Venetians, but the Venice Port Authority says only about a
quarter of their passengers get off them and spend money in the city. Reining in the ships and the
tourists is one challenge humans can control. Controlling the seas is not.
Which is why Marine scientist Luca Zaggia is putting
his faith in the MOSE project to save Venice for future generations.
CHRISTOPHER
LIVESAY: So the system must work.
The alternative is what?
LUCA
ZAGGIA: The system must work. We
have no alternatives at this point. It has to work.
###
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER THIRD |
1 |
1:25 |
MONICA CHOJNACKA HISTORIAN |
2 |
2:22 |
MASSIMO MILANESE GRAN CAFÉ LAVENA |
3 |
3:36 |
DARIO BERTI ENGINEERING MANAGER, MOSE |
4 |
4:34 |
MONICA CHOJNACKA HISTORIAN |
5 |
5:36 |
JANE DA MOSTO WE ARE HERE VENICE |
6 |
6:29 |
LUCA ZAGGIA INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCES |
7 |
8:08 |
MATTEO SECCHI VENICE RESIDENT |
8 |
8:40 |
TOMMASO CACCIARI NO GRANDI NAVI |
9 |
8:58 |
CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT |