In Drought-hit Sicily, Rainwater Is Dumped In The Sea

Campobello di Mazara, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Aug, 2024) Sicilian lemon producer Rosario Cognata is furious: his fruit is withering due to the drought, while just a few kilometres away rainwater is being dumped into the sea.

The Trinita dam, built in 1959 in the town of Castelvetrano in the west of the Mediterranean island, has not been tested and therefore has never been officially approved for use.

So as soon as the reservoir fills up with winter rains, the authorities open the floodgates and the blue gold pours into a canal ending in the sea.

"Okay, the drought is due to lack of rain. But we don't know how to manage the water we have -- and it's not the farmers' responsibility," said Cognata, as he looked into the dam, the low water level revealing rusting steel tubes.

The dam was intended to supply local irrigation networks, so farmers' wells were closed by authorities.

But the infrastructure not only never got the green light, it was also subsequently neglected.

The pipes are now dilapidated, leaving some desperate farmers to dig illegal wells to compensate.

Cognata blames decades of incompetent local and government water management.

"They were never interested," he said.