Basilicata v. Eni case: What happens after the Environmental Impact Assessment? Aims, Limits, and the Role of Civil Society.

One of the most important environmental challenges, nowadays, is to counterbalance the “right to progress” and the “duty to protect”. The European Union, fostered by the international panorama, aims at defining more and more specific conditions to its member States to try to find a compromise in this debated field. Art 191 of the TFEU sets out some objectives to be followed to preserve, protect, and improve the quality of the environment and of human health together with the prudent utilisation of resources. An important tool to achieve this objective is the Environmental Impact Assessment. This article briefly follows the evolution, the aims, and the limits of the EIA in Italy, through a still ongoing case between Eni S.p.A and Regione Basilicata.

Black Gold in a Green Land

“Val d’Agri” is an area of 68.996 hectares located on the inner part of the Appennino Lucano, between the Sirino and Volturino mountains. The area gets its name from the “Agri” river that crosses the territory. Within this landscape are also hosted the National Park of the Appennino Lucano and the artificial lake of Pertusillo that provides water to Basilicata and Apulia. If we search for some information about this area today, we will read of it as “the Southern Italy Texas”. Let’s discover why.

Val d’Agri has been exploited since the early 1900 – it’s many pits representing the scars of its exploitation. One of them is the “Centro Olio Val d’Agri” (COVA) in Viggiano, Potenza: this is the biggest extractive oil plant on land in the continental Europe. It has been in operation since 2001 and is an enlargement of the pre-existing “Centro Olio Monte Alpi” active since 1996, in the area registered as the “Productive zone for industrial settlements”.
The main activities occurring within the COVA consist of processing the oils produced by the deposit and in separating oil, gas and groundwater. The crude oil is then stocked into apposite tanks to be transferred to the Refinery located in Taranto, in Apulia. The daily capacity of production is estimated at 104.000 barrels for about 16.500 m3 of oil and about 4.660.000 Sm3of gas deriving from the crude oil. (Eni Local Report, 2012, p. 11)
While the plant is capable of covering 8% of the Italian national energetic need, the region is one of the last in terms of development and unemployment and its population keeps decreasing year after year.

On the one hand, Eni has underlined how the COVA is an example of transparency, good administration, dialogue with the public and respect for sustainability practices; on the other, the information is fuzzy and partially accessible for civil society (as we can directly acknowledge by trying to achieve detailed information from the website of the Observatory) that instead is experiencing on its skin the consequences of the COVA activities.

Legal Background, Procedures, and Authorizations

Since the extractions began over a hundred years ago, the explorative activities in this zone have undergone different typologies of permits, according to the evolution of the Italian and European procedural guidelines. On October 7th, 1998 a Memorandum of Understanding (Protocollo di Intesa) was signed between the Government and the Region Basilicata. The main aim of the document was to define a plan of interventions to allow the extractions of fossil fuels in line with the social and economic development of the implicated area.

After this first draft, another Memorandum (Protocollo di Intenti) was signed on November 18th, 1998 between the Region and Eni Spa, then revised in 2008 and in 2012. Among the other points of the agreement, it established environmental compensation measures to balance the alteration -directly or indirectly- caused by the project, the promotion of Sustainable Development, the defining of a system of monitoring, and the creation of an environmental observatory.

Environmental impact assessment

Whenever there is the possibility to conduct explorations that could harm the surrounding environment, a balanced decision must be taken. The most relevant legal tool at our disposal is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), the administrative procedure of support to decisions, with the objective of identifying relevant environmental risks and effects that a specific project may have. The EIA procedure tries, therefore, to rectify pollution at source by following the principles of prevention and precaution. Infact, not only must there be an initial evaluation of the impact that the work can cause on the surrounding environment before it begins, but it is important to continuously monitor every activity in itinere.

As said before, the COVA in 2001 was enlarged thanks to a positive EIA presented by Eni, but the activities on that land were occurring since the first years of 1900. Only after the D.P.R. 526/94, introducing the need of an impact evaluation for this specific project, the activities carried out in Val d’Agri could be submitted to an EIA. From that moment on, a series of EIA procedures were presented and accepted.

The expected Observatory, as by the Memorandum, was only established in 2011, thirteen years later. And even if the Observatory is now enabled, the access to information is still narrow. In addition, during the same year (2011), another project to modernize and improve the productive performances of the COVA was started as a result of several EIA procedures that were approved with DD.GG.RR. 627/2011. This, once again, highlighted that Eni was required to define “together with the A.R.P.A.B. a project of environmental monitoring”. In the meanwhile, activities were carried out without any monitoring, and new organisations and associations were born among the citizens hit by the impacts of the COVA.

Ensuring effective participation of the public concerned in decision-making procedure is also a requirement under the EIA Directive 2014/52/EU itself (Art. 6.2). The Aarhus Convention establishes instead the right to access to environmental information for member States, on matters related to environmental policies and measures taken and on the state of human health and safety; in general, ensuring the access to justice. However, fair access to information, as by the aforementioned sources, was not granted.

Some studies were carried out at the scientific level, such as the one conducted by a group of experts from the University of Padova. Their report concludes that it could not be possible to identify whether the mitigative measures were followed, due to the lack and unavailability of Environmental Impact Studies on the majority of the existing extracting plants and to the impossibility to conduct some more detailed observations directly on the field.

Further scientific research was conducted in 2013 by a professor of the University of Potenza, Albina Colella, on the environmental impact of the extractive activities and precisely on the contamination caused by hydrocarbons of the superficial and ground waters in Val d’Agri. Eni S.p.A sued prof. Colella for slander, but in the end the Tribunal of Rome- Civil Section- rejected the request of restoration issued by Eni and convicted the latter for vexatious complaints. The decision highlights the right to environmental information and it also recognises the constitutional range of the freedom of thought. This investigation was possible thanks to funds given by concerned citizens and thanks to some research funds of the professor. It seems therefore that the citizens replaced and still are replacing the regional institutions such as the A.R.P.A.B., C.T.R. that were supposed to control the activities under the profile of the environmental security. This private action turned out to be of fundamental importance, also because it sparked an interrogation at the European Commission in 2015 (that today still does not have an answer). In the meantime, the mortality rate for cancer and health diseases keeps growing due to the uncontrolled emissions of COVA.

Last year’s Conclusions

The proof that there are some abnormalities going on in the production process is also testified by some reports of citizens concerned about frequent “flame events” (eventi fiaccola) visible from the safety torch of the COVA. In its report from 2014 Eni went to great lengths to reassure the citizens by saying that it simply is a safety torch aiming to reduce potential of risky situations. But, what they do not say is that the torch works when there is an overload of production. The implication therefore is that the plant works far beyond its limits. This also explains the figures resulting from the previously explained studies.

In 2016 the Procura di Potenza envisaged the crime of environmental disaster because of the manipulation of data on the emissions of the COVA and for the forgery of the EWC codesfor the special waste produced. Then, an accident that occurred in the plant, caused the spillage of 400 tons of crude oil in the hydrogeographic net and on the surrounding area of the plant (around 26.000 sm). This event had already happened when Eni admitted the responsibility, in 2017, on the occasion of a working table convened by the Minister of the Environment to which were also present representatives of A.R.P.A.B.

The Regional Council lifted the suspension of all the activities going at COVA together with the necessity of a special inspection to it, to verify whether the company had implemented adequate actions to face the emergency. The latter was conducted, with the participation of Eni, by the A.R.P.A.B: the same institution charged with falsification of data from the Procura of Potenza.

In the meantime, Eni kept publishing reports on its website ensuring from various points of view (pollution of waters, health…) that there wasn’t any risk connected to its work, glad to announce the reopening of the site in July 2017, following the decision of the Regional Administrative Court of Basilicata.

From the analysis of this case, the impression is that Eni both acts and counteracts. Following the EIA, the permit was given and Eni became both the controlled and the supervisor. This is why the role of the participation of society in the monitoring processes is essential as it also follows from the Art. 6 of the EIA directive. The target of a work of such a range is the environment that must be protected, but landscapes cannot speak, they only can suffer. Citizens, associations and organisations naturally become the ones designated to defend it and therefore to defend themselves from activities of such companies and inactivity (or distorted activity) of the administrative bodies.

On the 25th of March, 2019 Eni presented to the competent Dicastery a request of renunciation of the national EIA for the construction of a new pit, “Alli 5”. The Regional Committee had already rejected the project (deliberation n, 1371/1208) explaining how there was already a project for drilling another pit which had the EIA authorization but had not started yet. An adverse opinion of the Ministry of the Environment was looming and so the company acted before the former could.

2020 – Recent Developments

In a public announcement made on the 16th of April 2019, Eni launched “Energy Touch” with the intent of strengthening dialogue with the territory by establishing a digital net to inform the public on the activities carried out. An initiative that comes too late. In fact, today (May 2020) COVA continues to operate. Despite the fact that the concession expired in October 2019 and was not renewed by the Ministry of Economic Development. Eni is allowed to continue the extractions thanks to a law from the Monti Government according to which even in the absence of an explicit authorization towards the proponent, the activities can move forward.

The real problem in this perspective remains the environmental aspect of the matter. The concession was not renewed and neither were the environmental compensations due by the company to the region. The question is always the same: who, in this sort of blank space, is going to pay for the damages? Eni will proceed with the extractions and citizens have the sacred right to receive adequate compensation for the exploitation of their territory and health.

References

• Videoreportage “Mal D’Agri”, Mimmo Nardozza
• Diantini Alberto, Petrolio e biodiversità in Val d’Agri, Linee guida per la valutazione di impatto ambientale di attività petrolifere on-shore, Geografia e discipline demoetnoantropologiche, 2016
• Eni in Basilicata Local Report, 2012
• Eni in Basilicata Local Report, 2014

• D.lgs.152/06. 
• Directive 94/22/EC 
• 10388/VIA/A.0.13.S of 14.11.1996
• Protocollo d’Intenti tra Eni e Regione Basilicata sulla Val d’Agri, http://www.comuneviggiano.it/petrolio/protenireg.pdf 
• http://www.acquaepetrolio.it/2018/08/15/albina-colella-chi-e-perche/ 
• http://asud.net/bruxelles-indaga-sul-petrolio-in-basilicata/ 
• https://www.eni.com/eni-basilicata/territorio/accordi-sviluppo-locale.page 
• https://www.terredifrontiera.info/rinuncia-eni-via-alli-5/ 
• http://documenti.camera.it/Leg17/Dossier/pdf/AM0040.pdf 
• https://www.lifegate.it/persone/news/basilicata-eni-petrolio-cova-valdagri 
• http://www.osservatoriovaldagri.it/web/guest/storia 
• http://atlanteitaliano.cdca.it/conflitto/estrazione-di-idrocarburi-eni-in-val-dagri 
• http://cdca.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/secondo_rap_ENI_valdagri_finale-2.pdf 
• https://www.quotidianodelsud.it/basilicata/cronache/cronaca/2018/11/21/petrolio-ha-frenato-sviluppo-bilancio-negativo-legambiente-20 
• http://www.regione.basilicata.it/giunta/files/docs/DOCUMENT_FILE_3029355.pdf 
• https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/env/pp/documents/cep43e.pdf 
• http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-8-2015-000153_IT.html 
• https://www.terredifrontiera.info/incidente-rilevante-cova/