VZCZCXRO1344
RR RUEHFL RUEHNP
DE RUEHNP #0119/01 3241638
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 201638Z NOV 07
FM AMCONSUL NAPLES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6148
INFO RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME 0369
RUEHMIL/AMCONSUL MILAN 0070
RUEHFL/AMCONSUL FLORENCE 0057
RHMFIUU/COMUSNAVEUR NAPLES IT
RHMFIUU/COMSERVFORSIXTHFLT
RUEHNP/AMCONSUL NAPLES 0875

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NAPLES 000119 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV PGOV PREL CASC TBIO IT
SUBJECT: THE NAPLES GARBAGE CRISIS: A CASE STUDY IN SOUTHERN ITALIAN 
PARALYSIS, WITH SOME SIGNS OF HOPE 
 
REF: NAPLES 57 
 
Sensitive but unclassified - handle accordingly. 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  Although the accumulation of garbage in 
Italy's Campania region has declined significantly since it grew 
to crisis proportions earlier this year, continued national and 
even international press coverage have made it a symbol of 
everything that is wrong with the Italian South: ineffective 
public services, failed leadership, lack of civic 
responsibility, and entrenched organized crime.  While 
politicians continue to argue and blame each other, Naples 
Prefect Pansa, the government's Waste Commissioner, has 
identified new dump sites and landfills that, when opened, 
should bring relief.  An incinerator in Acerra should begin 
operating in 2008, and will also contribute to a solution.  A 
U.S. Navy assessment of health risks to its personnel in the 
region is being undertaken, and will examine how long-term 
contamination may have affected the air, water and soil quality 
(note: close hold).  Post will continue to monitor the situation 
closely as our warden message on potential health hazards 
expires December 31.  End summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) While the waste emergency in Campania is not as severe 
as it was several months ago (reftel), it has not yet been 
resolved.  Trash goes uncollected for days and sometimes weeks 
in some parts of Naples and outlying suburbs and towns.  As 
landfill space has become scarcer, some 300 to 500 metric tons 
of waste have accumulated in Naples Province alone, according to 
media reports.  One report indicated that, were the garbage 
bales to be piled end to end, they would stretch from Naples to 
Scotland, while another predicted it would take fifty years to 
incinerate just the current accumulation.  Regarding the 
separate issue of sewage treatment, one former Naples academic 
who now lives in the U.S. told the CG it is sheer luck that the 
city has not had a cholera epidemic in years. 
 
¶3.  (U) On November 13, Pol-Econoff and Econ specialist toured 
some of the affected areas.  Particularly hard-hit by the crisis 
is suburban Pozzuoli, just west of Naples, where garbage piles 
stretch as long as 200 meters.  At one site, Roma children 
picked through a five-foot high heap; at another, smoke billowed 
from a massive pile -- despite a huge sign announcing "dumping 
prohibited."  Other areas choked with refuse include the Naples 
neighborhoods of Fuorigrotta and Bagnoli (near the NATO base), 
and several roads running on the ocean side of Mt. Vesuvius not 
far from the archaeological site of Herculaneum.  Interestingly, 
there are no piles of uncollected trash in most tourist areas, 
in the Chiaia neighborhood where the American Consulate is 
located, or in Posillipo, the upscale neighborhood where 
Regional President Bassolino lives. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Residents of some of the worst affected areas have 
staged several demonstrations over the past few weeks, some to 
protest that the garbage has not been collected, and some to 
object to the possible establishment of new dumps in their 
towns.  As foreshadowed in reftel, a number of local mayors have 
opposed new dumps.  Following increasing media attention, on 
November 7, Prime Minister Prodi called several local 
authorities to Rome to try to broker an agreement.  The next 
day, Naples mayor Rosa Iervolino privately expressed her 
frustration to the CG, noting that both politics and geography 
were hindering a solution.  Naples does not have much open space 
nearby, she said, "and I can't dump the garbage into the sea!" 
Later on November 8, a site near a cemetery in the city's 
Poggioreale district was selected as a new city dump.  Yet 
although Iervolino acknowledged that the northern Italian city 
of Brescia successfully converted trash into energy, there is 
apparently no imminent plan to copy this model in Naples. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) In July, Prodi appointed Naples prefect Alessandro 
Pansa to be the new Commissioner for the Waste Emergency, 
replacing Guido Bertolaso, who continues in his role as national 
Director of Civil Protection.  A member of Pansa's team (a 
nuclear waste specialist from Italy's Geological Survey) told us 
November 15 that he is optimistic the waste problem will be over 
soon, though this view is not widely shared by all observers. 
Two new major landfills in Caserta and Avellino (the former "a 
done deal," the latter strongly expected) should mean an end to 
the space problem, he said.  In addition, a modern incinerator, 
designed to convert non-toxic waste into energy, should be 
completed in Acerra in 2008.  Many of the bales of waste that 
have been through processing plants and stored temporarily 
around the region will be deposited into some of Campania's 
caves, and in some instances covered with cement. 
 
¶6. (U) Naples' recycling program (established two or three years 
ago) is not working well.  Most politicians with whom we have 
discussed the issue bemoan the fact that Italians, in particular 
 
NAPLES 00000119  002 OF 002 
 
 
Southern Italians, do not share the discipline and civic 
responsibility of their northern European counterparts. 
However, even those who do attempt to recycle may be doing so in 
vain, according to the waste expert.  Glass, cardboard and 
metal, which are in demand, get recycled, but the paper and 
plastic that many Neapolitans work to separate often get mixed 
back in with the rest of the garbage because recycling them is 
not economically viable.  Mayor Iervelino asked the CG for 
possible U.S. interlocutors experienced in large-scale 
recycling.  As part of the Mission's "green" initiative, the 
Consulate General recycles paper, plastic and toner. 
 
¶7.  (U) As for dealing with the "not-in-my-backyard" syndrome, 
our contact told us that Pansa's role as Commissioner gives him 
the authority (and funding) to issue and enforce decrees.  On 
November 16, Naples media reported that Pansa had warned local 
authorities that if they do not accept their responsibility to 
deal with the waste problem, a solution would be forced on them. 
 Indeed, politics seems to be a greater obstacle to resolving 
the problem than geographical or other factors, and reflects a 
broader leadership paralysis that extends well beyond the 
garbage crisis.  Pansa's term as Commissioner expires on 
December 31; he will be replaced by Regional President 
Bassolino, who has already served as Waste Commissioner, and who 
is under indictment for fraud relating to cost and time 
over-runs on the incinerator project. 
 
¶8.  (U) The situation is further complicated by finger-pointing 
by various political leaders, and ongoing, unsubstantiated 
rumors that somehow organized crime is behind the waste crisis. 
Our contact in Pansa's office reported that he has not seen 
evidence of Camorra involvement, although he had noticed some 
"suspicious" people observing the unloading of waste at various 
dump sites.  Organized crime's links to illegal toxic waste 
dumps in the region have been described in annual reports by 
leading Italian environmental group Legambiente, as well as in 
the recently published best-seller mafia expose "Gomorra."  A 
major Camorra boss told judges a few years ago that toxic waste 
"is like gold" -- one of the most lucrative and less risky 
activities for the Camorra.  Half of the industrial waste 
produced in Italy each year falls into the hands of organized 
crime groups who dispose of it illegally for record profits, 
according to Legambiente's most recent study. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) The U.S. Commander of Navy Region Europe has 
commissioned an assessment, being conducted by Navy experts with 
the collaboration of host-country officials, of the health risks 
of waste and pollution in the area.  (NOTE:  This assessment is 
sensitive and has not yet been made public, though both the GOI 
and local authorities are on board -- please hold close.  End 
note.)  Though prompted by this year's garbage crisis, its focus 
will be much larger, and the team will look at the effects of 
waste on the quality of soil, water and food throughout the 
region.  According to members of the assessment team, initial 
indications are that the garbage burning, while unpleasant and 
possibly dangerous in certain areas, is not likely to be a 
serious general health risk.  (An ongoing GOI study should shed 
more light on this.)  A potentially more serious concern is the 
effect of decades of improper hazardous waste disposal in 
Campania. (The results of a GOI study were presented at an 
international conference in September, and should be published 
soon.)  The key question regarding both trash burning and buried 
waste is if there is an overlap between specific local areas of 
concern and where Navy employees live or work, something the 
assessment team will be focusing on using geospatial data. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Despite high-profile media attention (newspapers 
continue to call it a "crisis" and an "emergency"), the waste 
situation has improved significantly since the summer, and 
further progress appears to be in sight, despite the 
characteristically inefficient bureaucracy and the tendency of 
both politicians and the public to complain rather than to offer 
solutions.  Most city districts are not overflowing with burning 
rubbish, as was the case several months ago.  The Department's 
warden message, issued earlier this year in response to the more 
urgent situation, expires on December 31.  Post will continue to 
monitor the situation, and will coordinate closely with local 
authorities (both health and political) and U.S. military 
personnel before making any final recommendation. 
TRUHN