On Saturday 10 October 2020, in the Aldino Ripari room in Colleferro, the open conference, entitled “Site of national interest, Valle del Sacco. Restarting in a European context ", was organised by the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Lazio e della Toscana (IZSLT) in the framework of the European project “LINDANET”.
The purpose of the conference was to provide information about the LINDANET project to the project stakeholders and to facilitate residents’ participation to institutional acts.
Since the first discovery of lindane contamination in the area, 15 years ago, actions have been taken to avert risks for the population and to restore the environment. Thus, the competent authorities from the Lazio Region took this opportunity to share with the residents the information about the already planned actions that will involve several regional and national bodies.
The conference was introduced by the institutional greetings of the Mayor of Colleferro, Pierluigi Sanna, the Director General of the IZSLT, Ugo Della Marta, and the head of environmental policies and the waste cycle of the Lazio Region, Flaminia Tosini.
After the talks of the speakers from the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Lazio e della Toscana, the Lazio Region, the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, the Epidemiology Department of the Regional Health Service and the Valle del Sacco Protection Network (citizens association), a round table was held with the mayors, with the other associations and with citizens' committees.
Dr. Bruno Neri and Dr. Marcello Sala, from IZSLT, focused their presentations respectively on the characteristics and consequences that lindane contamination has on the environment with examples of what happens in the European scenario, and on the biomonitoring activities (both in animals and vegetables/plants) which have been planned to characterise the areas that can be used for food production, according to risk categorization.
Eng. Flaminia Tosini illustrated the state of the agreements between the entities involved in the monitoring and remediation activities of the Sacco valley as well as the planning of the necessary interventions. Dr. Eleonora Beccaloni and Dr. Paola Michelozzi dealt instead with the aspects most closely linked to public health, describing respectively the actions related to monitoring activities, illustrated by Dr. Sala, and on the epidemiological evidences associated with lindane contamination, which are under continuous monitoring by the Department of Epidemiology of the Health Service of the Lazio Region. As the last speaker, Mr. Roberto Rosso closed the presentations and illustrated the associations and citizens' committee’s initiatives launched by the residents of the affected municipalities.
The conference was actively participated by residents and experts, with about 40 people attending the event and a large number of people who followed the live streaming. The meeting ended with an invitation and commitment to develop a closer collaboration between institutions and citizens to ensure correct information sharing in compliance with the roles and the health protection and remediation activities that have already been planned.
