Archive for Water
Something fishy
Posted by: | CommentsLast night we had an especially delectable dinner, focusing (as often happens) on fish.
Sometimes we buy them, sometimes we catch them, and sometimes they thrust themselves upon us.
Two gilthead sea bream (orate) on the left and center, and the very strong, daring, not very clever gray mullet on the right. It was an impressive jump, but our plate was not his original destination.
As in this case: ”Orate” (gilthead sea bream) are highly prized around Venetian restaurants, and are vigorously cultivated in the various lagoon fish-farms. We bought these two specimens from our neighborhood fisherman a few hours after he snagged them.
The other little guy, the slender one at the right edge of the plate, is a cefalo (”siegolo” — SYEH-go-yo — in Venetian), or gray mullet. Very delicious, but very snobbed these days by restaurants who prefer to offer the very trendy orata, at preposterous prices.
Your basic gray mullet, or cefalo. They come in various sizes and variaties, and we catch them with a simple gillnet when they're not practicing for the high-jump event in the fish olympics.
A few hours before the picture above was taken, our little siegolo had been swimming blithely along, zipping through the water thinking whatever busy ichtheous thoughts oppress teenagers of the Mugilidae family.
Suddenly, he felt like leaping. This happens to mullet of all sizes, I don’t know why, but it strikes usually in the morning, sometimes in the dead of night. You can be rowing along and they’ll just bounce out of the water as if there were a trampoline down there somewhere. And it is not at all unusual for them to land, not with a splash, but a thud, as they hit the bottom of our boat.
The first time this ever happened to me, we were rowing in a four-oar sandolo at midnight back from Sant’ Erasmo all the way to the Lido. Summer nights are luminous in the lagoon and back then there weren’t quite so many motorboats tearing around all night, or at least not enough to drown out the pensive voice of a nightingale that came out of the dark woods as we rowed along the canal between the two islands called the Vignole, or the lovely, solitary note — just one — of the owl they call a soeta. It was magical.
Suddenly there was a thump in the bottom of the boat, and it kept thumping. In the dark I thought it was a bottle or something similar that had fallen over in the midst of our various voyaging detritus. But no — it was a fish. A big, strong mullet, who evidently had rejoiced as a strong man to run a race to see just how high out of the water he could hurl himself. He found out how high, but he hadn’t calculated on the landing. Fish don’t get to go home again any more than people do, at least not those who launch themselves anywhere near us. His future was pretty simple at this point: The skillet and a slather of extravirgin olive oil.
Anyway, sorry as I am to see a mullet’s morning, or evening, ruined by being taken prisoner and then executed, I know we appreciate him more than a lot of people do. Maybe more than his friends and family do. (Do fish have friends?)
Afa: get to know it
Posted by: | CommentsI was going to write about something else but it’s just too hot. Every summer we get a heatwave around about now, but I’m not sure I remember one quite this heavy. Or long-lasting.
We’ve been having temperatures up around 100 degrees F. (39 degrees C) during the day, slightly less at night, for at least a week. Yesterday the weather report indicated that it was hotter here than in New York. I can tell you without consulting anybody but myself that it’s hotter than the hinges of hell.
Looking toward Murano at 8:30 this morning.
In addition to simple heat, there is the element called “afa,” which means sweltering, sultry, breathless heat, the kind of mugginess that makes you feel like an old sponge that has been left in a dark damp corner next to things that smell.
There are only two places I can think of where this weather would be even more intolerable. One would be anywhere along the Po River plain, where the fields stretch for long, desperate distances with no shade. Where there is shade, among the poplar plantations lining the river, there is no oxygen. Whatever is taking the place of oxygen does not move, because the world has stopped.
Looking toward the Lido at the lagoon inlet of San Nicolo'. The egret is happy, but egrets don't sweat.
The other place where the heat is torment is the mountains. Mountains are made to be cool, at least at night. If I had to endure this kind of heat at 4,000 feet, I’d have to think long and carefully about my revenge.
Clamming takes your mind off the fact that you're suffocating.
We’ve gotten through it so far by going out in the lagoon in a small mascareta, to a place where there is virtually always a breeze. And enough water to immerse myself for ten hours or so. Other people go to the beach on the Lido. Other people go shopping at the small supermarket off Campo Ruga, where the air-conditioning is set to cryogenic depths. We go clamming. More fun, for us. Probably not so much for the clams.
I’m off to bed now, planning to dream of the freezers at the Tyson chicken-processing plant. Do not wake me.
Racing through Murano
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Murano is just ten minutes from Venice, but it's a whole other world. And not just because of all the glass, either.
If you’ve ever been to Murano, one of the world’s great glass-making centers, you will know that it’s impossible to race through it. You will be exhausted, but not because you’ve been going so fast; au contraire, you will have been plodding along at the pace of those debilitated galley slaves in Ben-Hur, going in and out of so many shops you’ll think they’ve been breeding in dark corners when you’re not looking. The five islands that make up Murano, of which you will probably only visit two, cover barely one square mile, and the Yellow Pages list 61 shops. I think there must be more.
Anyway, you will not have been racing. Unless it’s the first Sunday in July, in which you can come to Murano to watch other people race, and believe me, they’re going to be more tired in less time than you and your whole family after an entire day.
A glimpse of the leaders last year, heading from out in the lagoon into the Grand Canal of Murano and the home stretch.
The regata of Murano is really three regatas, each involving solo rowers, which calls not only for stamina but for skill. The races are for young men on pupparinos, women on pupparinos, and grown men on gondolas. It’s always hot, and there is always wind, and sometimes, like a few years ago, there can be sudden thunderstorms with pouring rain. But the race must go on.
Only about ten more minutes to go, and unless something extraordinary happens, at this point the positions aren't likely to change much. But they don't slack off, all the same.
The city of Venice organizes nine regatas a year, plus the Regata Storica. Each race is designed for a particular type of boat and number of rowers, and each is held in a different part of the lagoon, which means that the conditions and course present their own particular quirks. These changing venues also means that some are easier to watch from the shore than others, and the one at Murano is especially exciting not only because you can see both the start and the finish, but because there are good vantage-points along the fondamentas, and even a big cast-iron bridge from which to get a spectacular view of the finish.
The women on pupparinos are about 60 seconds from the finish line and it looks like the pink boat may still have a chance to overtake the white (2009).
Regatas (a Venetian word, by the way), have been an important feature of Venetian festivities since the Venetians crawled out of the primordial ooze; sometimes they were part of a religious celebration, or part of the myriad spectacles staged for the amusement of visiting potentates, but they were one-time events.
Luisella Schiavon -- from Murano, as it happens -- has a clear shot at first place at this point. She won last year, and this year, too. Being tall, as well as talented, makes a difference.
But in 1869, the regata at Murano was established as a regular annual event and not for any prince or pope but to entertain — yes — tourists. And whether or not tourists can look up for a few minutes from the heaps of glass necklaces and picture frames and flower vases, this race is arguably the most important occasion for a Venetian racer to show what he, or she, has really got. I can tell you that the man who wins the gondola race is universally regarded as having won something akin to Wimbledon, or maybe the Ironman Triathlon, or the Tour de France. Maybe all of them.
Here’s what it takes to win: Strength, stamina, skill, luck, and extreme and ruthless cunning. It also helps if you’re tall. It’s a physics thing; short rowers have a hard time keeping up with taller ones, though sometimes a short person has pulled it off, especially if he or she (I’m thinking of a she) is lavishly gifted with the aforementioned luck and cunning. Or just cunning.
My two most vivid memories of this race are from one of the earliest ones I ever attended, and the one from last Sunday. Both, oddly, involve a certain racer named Roberto Busetto.
Roberto Busetto last Sunday, crossing the finish line in third place just ahead of the yellow gondola. Victory is sweet, at least until you black out.
Mr. Busetto is strong — he looks like Mr. Clean, and he has biceps that make you think of whole prosciuttos. He is also experienced, and very determined (I’m not sure that he’s made it up to “ruthless”), but if anything ever upsets him during the race — even if it may not have prevented him from finishing really well — he can be counted on to show up for his prize yelling about it. In fact, there will always be something that’s wrong, and he goes all Raging Bull at the judges, at some fellow racer, at some onlooker, at anyone or anything that might have created even the tinest problem for him. Or who looks like they don’t care. It’s never easy to understand, in the midst of his tirade, what actually went wrong. But you know he’s mad.
Okay, Mr. Clean, let's just check those vital signs again.
The first time I saw Busetto at full throttle, he had barely crossed the finish line when he started ranting. It had something to do with what he claimed was some sneaky, illegal thing that another racer, Franco Dei Rossi, had inflicted on him, thereby preventing him from finishing better.
The confusion of boats immediately following the race doesn't usually include the ambulance. Last year it was just the usual suspects.
But it wasn’t his tantrum that stunned me, though I didn’t know at that point that tantrums are his normal means of expression, the way some people can’t help starting every sentence with “Well” or “You know.” It was the fact that under this deluge of outrage, Dei Rossi was sobbing as he mounted the judges’ stand to be awarded his prize. A grown man, one of the greatest (in my view) racers of his generation, son of one of the greatest racers in history, was standing there weeping uncontrollably. It was so astonishing and distressing that I know I didn’t imagine it, and I’m not exaggerating, either. I’m glad I didn’t have a camera with me, I wouldn’t be able to bear looking at the pictures. It really left a mark on me.
So we come to last Sunday. It’s Busetto again. He has been racing for at least 20 years, maybe more, but he had only a very brief peak, and that was quite some while ago. In fact, I’d have to stop and do some research to determine when was the last time he won a pennant. I think the Beatles may still have been together. (Just kidding; it was in 2000.)
But this year, he finished third. Which means he won the green pennant, which means that after a ten-year drought he had managed to pull himself back into the ranks of the demi-gods. Pennants are awarded to the first four finishers, and they really matter to the racers, almost as much as the cash prize.
This is what normal collapsing looks like -- here, Sebastiano Della Toffola has just finished his first race with the big guys. Franco Dei Rossi, a certified, gold-plated Big Guy, looks on with something that looks like comprehension.
Finishing third is pretty great, but about two seconds after crossing the finish line, he collapsed. First he sort of let himself fall down backwards on the stern of the boat, which isn’t so strange except that it’s usually the younger men who want to show how completely wrung out they are. It’s like when they throw their oar in the water (rage, joy, some other intense emotion — looks very dramatic, till you realize how dumb it is).
An excellent example of what incredible-victory collapsing looks like. Last year, like this year, first place went to Igor Vignotto. On the orange gondola both times. You may laugh, but this is how superstitions are born.
But then my friend Anzhelika said, “He’s too white.” Then I noticed that his boat had drifted slaunchwise across the canal, blocking the arrival of the last gondolas. Then there was some commotion, then the sound of the water ambulance arriving at full speed.
Much pouring of cool water on his head, much checking of his blood pressure. He tore himself away long enough to come pick up his pennant, annoyed (of course), though not yelling, because everybody was fussing over him. He likes attention, but nobody with arms like prosciuttos wants it to be because he fell apart.
But some things in life are bigger than prosciuttos, and rowing under the searing sun for 40 minutes at full blast if you’re not in astronaut-type physical condition is asking for it. “It” being an ambulance and a blood-pressure cuff, and lots of people suddenly looking at you like you’re some kind of invalid.
You know it’s serious when Roberto Busetto isn’t yelling.
Franco Dei Rossi (2009) in a more typical post-race moment: Smiling because he's won another pennant. In this case, a blue one for fourth place. Not at all bad in a field of nine, for a man who's drifting up on 60 years old.
This year's first and second-place finishers. Igor Vignotto on the left (red pennant) and Rudi Vignotto (white pennant). They were adversaries, but only sort of; not only are they cousins, but they have rowed together their entire lives.
The fourth-place pennant, clutched by a sweat-soaked Ivo Redolfi Tezzat. This is an especially nice design, with the rooster, the emblem of Murano, in the upper corner. If you've won this, though, you really don't care if it's a rooster or a wall-eyed vireo.
Then we all followed the scent of the scorching sausage and ribs to the local festa. This little girl out with her grandmother has the most astonishing pre-Raphaelite face. I just can't stand the thought of her growing up and walking around with a cell phone and tattoos and mutilated hair. Must be getting old.
Interested in the races? The ribs? The music? The thunderstorm about to shatter the sky into a billion sharp wet pieces? Not really. Here is an excellent demonstration of what these parties are for. The food and music are just ruses.
Venice marries the sea: the bride was lovely
Posted by: | CommentsLast Sunday (May 16) Venice pulled what was once one of its greatest festivals out of storage for its annual exhibition: Ascension Day, or “la Sensa.”
The boat procession, having passed the Naval College, moves along the Lido shoreline toward the church of San Nicolo' and the ceremony of the blessing of the ring.
Up until the year 1000 A.D., if you’ll cast your minds back, the fortieth day after Easter had been primarily known as the commemoration of Christ’s ascension to heaven. It still is, but at the turn of the millennium the day took on large quantities of extra importance for Venice.
The day also became just as famous for the “Sposalizio del mare,” or wedding of the sea, a ceremony performed by the doge and Senate in the company of many boats of all sorts which all proceeded toward the inlet to the sea at San Nicolo’ on the Lido. At the culminating moment, the doge tossed a golden ring into the lagoon waters and intoned, “Desponsamus te, Mare, in signum veri perpetique dominii.“ (”I wed thee, O Sea, in sign of perpetual dominion.”)
The "Serenissima" pulls up to the judges' stand to put the doge -- I mean mayor -- and retinue ashore.
This statement had nothing to do with religion, even though it does sound impressive in Latin, right up there with “till death us do part.” It had much more to do with politics, because on Ascension Day in the year 1000 (May 9, if you’re interested), doge Pietro I Orseolo finally quashed the Slavic pirates who, from their eastern Adriatic lairs, had been harassing Venetian shipping and seriously inconveniencing Venetian progress.
This was a pivotal moment in Venetian history; it opened the way to centuries of expansion, wealth and power, and the Venetians wanted to make sure that all their assorted neighbors and trading partners and possibly also trading competitors remembered what they had done and could do again, if necessary.
For another thing, beginning in 1180 one of the largest commercial fairs of the entire year was held during the Ascension Day period. Merchants and traders from all over the Mediterranean and beyond set up booths in the Piazza San Marco to sell ivory, incense, ebony, oils of jasmine and sandalwood and bergamot, pomegranate soap, tortoiseshell back-scratchers, bath salts, mirrors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, dried figs and apricots, plant-based hair dyes, luxurious textiles, and even Abyssinian and Circassian and sub-Saharan slaves. All this was traded in languages and dialects from Venetian to Armenian, Hebrew, Uzbek, Greek, Turkish, German, Georgian, Iberian, Arabic, French and Persian. I’m sure I’ve left something out. This fair was such a big deal that soon it was extended from eight days to two weeks. Yes, even back then the city was just one big emporium, though incense strikes me as being cooler than the bargain Carnival masks made in China bestrewing the shops today.
A flea market by the church of San Nicolo' is the best we can do at evoking the fabulous market of yore.
I don’t suppose that the average Venetian on the street would have told you much of the above if you’d stopped to ask what the big deal was about the Sensa. But a smallish contingent of people have applied themselves, since the early Nineties, to bringing back at least some ceremonial in order to acknowledge the moment .
Need a lampshade with a portrait of Audrey Hepburn or Charlie Chaplin? Now's your chance.
I wonder if any merchants from the old days would have been tempted by these.
So yesterday morning there was a boat procession, more or less following the “Serenissima,” the biggest and fanciest of the city’s ceremonial barges which was carrying the mayor (best we could do, seeing as we’re dogeless these days) and costumed trumpeters and a batch of military and civilian dignitaries and also a priest.
At the Morosini naval college at Sant’ Elena, all the cadets were ready and waiting, lined up along the embankment. Standing crisply at attention with their hats in their right hand, on command they raised their hat-holding arm straight out at a sharp 45-degree angle, and shouted with one voice “OO-rah.” They did this three times in succession, then there was a pause. Then they did it again. They do this at intervals till the boats have all passed.
For my money, this is the best part of the event, much better than the ring-and-sea business. In fact, I’m convinced that if the cadets were not to do this, it would ruin the entire day.
The boats surround the "Serenissima" as the declamation(s) proceed.
The boats then proceed to the area in front of the church of San Nicolo’ on the Lido, where they clump together, the priest blesses the ring, and the mayor throws it into the water. One year our boat was close enough that I took somebody’s dare and actually managed to snag it before it sank (all the ribbons tied to it momentarily helped it to float). Then I had a heavy surge of superstitious guilt. Even if it wasn’t gold — it was kind of like what you’d use to hang a heavy curtain — it was a symbolic object fraught with meaning. I wondered if I’d just blighted Venice’s mojo for another year. But I didn’t throw it back — that seemed even stupider than grabbing it in the first place. So, you know, my disrespect just left another ding on the chrome trim of my conscience.
The first three gondolas, battling it out in the back stretch.
Then there is a boat race — in this case, a race for gondolas rowed by four men each. In Venice the celebration of really important events always involved a regata, and when this festival began to take form, Lino created this one. Yesterday the competition was somewhat more dramatic than usual in that a strong garbin, or southwest wind, was blowing, and it was also really cold. Lots of big irritated waves. Strong incoming tide. All elements that do not conduce to easy victory or friendly handshakes afterward, not that these guys are ever inclined to that sort of thing. But it made for a very exciting 40 minutes — better than usual, if you could stand the cold.
Heading into the home stretch, they held onto third place, well ahead of their closest competitors.
So much for the festivities, so much for the wedding of the sea. No honeymoon, though. We just move on to another 12 months of trying to dominate the sea. Not with galleys anymore; Venice seems to be doing a pretty good job with the ever-increasing flotilla of cruise ships.
MOSE : no happily ever after
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s probably way past everybody’s bedtime, so I’ll wrap up this little philippic.
Imagining momentarily that a satisfactory conclusion could ever be reached in the Gordian convolutions of the “floodgate” project, permit me to make a few very brief observations.
First, let us make a concerted effort to ban all those irresistible emotional words that acqua alta seems to force from journalists’ subconscious. “Venice under siege,” is a common one. CNN said that the high water of December, 2008 had been caused by the Adriatic “bursting its banks.” (Banks? Bursting? Are we in Holland?). The Discovery Channel stated that the high water was “cannibalizing” the city’s buildings (OMG). And on and on. One could smile if this kind of reporting wasn’t cannibalizing common sense.
If the city can't manage to find some money for people, even when we've got MOSE we may no longer have any people. Good thing we have pictures.
When I think about it really calmly, it appears to me that it’s actually impossible for the planners and builders of MOSE to be able to make any promise (guarantee, statement, claim, whatever you like) about their creation that they can prove is accurate.
There are simply too many unknowns in the many different scenarios devoted to its use: How well it will function — that’s the big one – how much its maintenance (routine or extra) will cost, where the money for feeding and caring for it will come from, etc.
Every claim from its proponents is supported so far only by data assembled by them.
Probably the two major areas of concern for its success are:
First: How high the highest tides are likely to become. Some estimates only give MOSE 100 years of usefulness, after which the highest tides will spill over its maximum height. The frequency and duration of these exceptional high tides are also subject to interminable debate. But nobody knows.
I wonder who will hang out the laundry everybody (including me) loves to photograph. Maybe they'll hire somebody.
Second: How well the individual caissons will remain aligned. As I mentioned in my last post, if they begin to lose their perfect uniform surface (even if only one of them doesn’t rise as high as its neighbor, or the seal begins to leak), the strength of the entire “wall” of caissons will be compromised.
I have rowed against the incoming tide at the inlet at San Nicolo, in normal weather with no hint of wind or surge, and it is nowhere near being a joke. If the barrier isn’t perfect, the tide will come in whether MOSE is ready or not.
But let us not be downhearted. Let’s say that the machinery functions perfectly, precisely as planned. Let’s say that exceptional high water occurs ever more frequently. as expected. Let’s say that every prediction is fulfilled, even though there is no way to assume they will be.
Here is the real question: Has Venice been saved from anything except some water in the street for a few hours?
The true inundation, the most implacable and destructive, is the endless tide of tourists. The number increases 3 per cent every year; in 2009 it reached 21 million in an area of about three square miles.
No need to waste any time worrying about the old folks, they'll be gone anyway.
Whether this fact inspires emotion or not, it is more measurable, and predictable, than the inexact, politically driven “science” that has given birth to MOSE.
So let’s say that while assorted interested parties continue to water and fertilize the popular obsession which the press has with acqua alta, some very real problems continue to be neglected.
Young families will continue to move away because they can’t afford Venice (housing, primarily, though lack of jobs is a close second), the older generations eventually die off, and before MOSE has become obsolete the city will be devoid of residents. In their place will be the tsunami of tourists — tended to by merchants who mostly live on the mainland — which will finally render the city completely unliveable.
So even if MOSE performs perfectly, the Venice that has been “saved” will amount to nothing more than a collection of really old buildings, beautiful or not, according to your taste.
If no comparable effort is made to revive and protect the life of Venice, then even if MOSE turns out to be an engineering marvel to rival the invention of the arch, the once-thriving city will be as devoid of life as Machu Picchu.
When that happens, there’s won’t be much point in vilifying MOSE, or bewailing the triumph of politics and fear over basic municipal common sense.
But unfortunately, and perhaps even unwillingly, even the not-so-old will be gone too.
But it seems clear, even now, before the first button is pushed, that if the time, energy, and billions of dollars that will have been spent to hold back the tide had been dedicated to resolving the chronic, debilitating problems that Venice experiences every day, in 50 years there would still be a living city worth saving.
MOSE: yes? no? maybe? don’t know?
Posted by: | CommentsHaving reviewed the barest basics of acqua alta, and the barest technical outlines of the “floodgate” project intended to keep Venice as dry as the Nebraska Sand Hills, I’d better warn you that not everybody is on board.
“This is a way of funneling a huge amount of money to business allies of the government,” a city councilor told The Christian Science Monitor last year. “There are better alternatives but they were never considered. There is a big question mark over whether it will really work.”
So has anybody spoken up? Only thousands of people. The project been protested, sued against, blocked and stalled in all sorts of ways for 30 years (yes: it’s taken three decades to get this thing to where it is today), and even now the arguments pro and con continue to be lobbed back and forth between the opposing believers.
Construction proceeds at the inlet at San Nicolo, the one closest to Venice. The artificial island in the middle, built to accommodate construction equipment, has already affected the tidal flows. It will not be dismantled.
There have been a few times when it appeared that perhaps the project would be annulled for various reasons: lack of money, the bizarre absence of the required Environmental Impact Statement, legal loopholes that kept being found and then quickly closed. But nothing has been able to stop its implacable progression toward completion. It’s like throwing gravel at the Kraken.
By the end of 2009, despite all the myriad stops, starts, and slowdowns, 63 percent of the project had been completed. There isn’t enough money to restore historic palaces and churches which are visible every day, but somehow money has been found to block exceptional high water, an event which might occur four to seven times a year. Or maybe not at all. You may have noticed that the weather is not operated by the Swiss railway system.
But doesn’t everybody in Venice want to save their city from the sea?
In a word: No. At least not everybody in Venice wants this to be the way to tame the tides. In fact, it is difficult to find anyone who is not directly benefiting from the project who thinks it’s a good idea. Quite the contrary.
There are four general categories to which most objections belong. Let’s look at the them:
Political: Not much to say here, because this is a sphere in which nothing is ever resolved. The political fortresses from which accusations have been hurled like stone cannonballs are very well defined: right, left, extreme right, extreme left, and a mass of foot soldiers in the middle with all sorts of commingled ideas. But if you don’t belong to some group, nobody will ever listen to you (not that they listen so much anyway). Only thing is, each group has an agenda which includes lots of other issues as well, so if you join one to reject the MOSE project, you could find yourself on mailing lists as being against a batch of other undertakings as well. Maybe you’re not against those, maybe you don’t even care.
The lagoon has no idea there is a famous city sitting out there somewhere.
Others point out that the Special Law for Venice, by which federal funds are earmarked for the city, specifically authorized interventions to stop pollution and re-establish the morphologic equilibrium of the lagoon. It doesn’t appear that MOSE will satisfy either of those requirements. Au contraire.
Even more important, each side considers it a good day’s work if it has managed to frustrate or thwart the other. No other result is really necessary. This reality is the cholesterol in the political metabolism, hardening and constricting the arteries through which ideas and energy and good will might otherwise have flowed to produce something beneficial to the organism (the city and the lagoon) as a whole.
Economic: Every enormous public work since the Great Pyramid of Cholula (and perhaps even that one) has exceeded its projected cost. The original date of completion was given as 2010. This has now moved to 2014. Hence the costs have also changed. MOSE was budgeted at $4.5 billion, more or less, depending on whose estimates you follow, a number which it has now overtaken without even slowing down to wave. In 2008, the cost had risen to $7 billion.
There is also the cost/benefit aspect to consider. I think it’s fair to say that anyone who is not personally involved would concede that the costs and the benefits of this colossal undertaking do not come anywhere near matching up.
One foreign newspaper reported that $30 million a year is lost in business each time the Piazza San Marco floods (meaning that these 40-some shops can make $30 million in six hours, when the tide is in? Wow…. ). But let’s say acqua alta does cost $30 million, even if that number is cited only by the people who would benefit from the effects of such a prediction.
MOSE, as already mentioned, not only has cost $7 billion by now with 35 percent and two more years to go. Few if any mention is made of the estimated cost of annual maintenance of this behemoth: a mere $11.5 million. Of course, this will be eternal income to the interested parties. The project will be finished, but maintenance is forever.
Plenty of people would like to keep living here, if they could. But to the locals, it can seem like it's one of the great forgotten cities of the world.
But that isn’t the crux of the objections to its price tag. Simply put, it’s that money dedicated to MOSE is lost to anything else.
Stories which focus on the cost/disturbances inflicted by a few hours of water on the ground don’t tend to refer to the financial scorched earth the MOSE project has made of the quality of daily life for everybody everywhere in Venice, not just the shopkeepers around San Marco. Paying for this project, which might bring a temporary benefit to the city a couple of times a year, has deprived the city of the money required for numerous, more humble needs (schools, ambulances, restoration of monuments and private buildings, etc.).
Just about every facility or service which is important to city life, more important than the occasional need to put on the Wellies, has been cut in some way. The administrations’s constant cry “We have no money” tends not to explain why.
Environmental: When UNESCO designated Venice as a World Heritage Site in 1987, it specifically included the entire Venetian lagoon. It is the second-largest wetland in Europe (Europe has lost 2/3 of its wetlands in the last 100 years). It is vital area for plants, fish, and birds, some of which are already endangered. Every year some 200,000 birds winter, nest, or pause here in their twice-yearly migrations. One could make a reasonable case that the lagoon has a value which rivals that of Venice.
Local, national and international environmental groups have raised countless alarms about the effect of this project on the lagoon environment. Prominent among these are the World Wildlife Fund, LIPU (the bird people), RAMSAR (international wetland protection), Italia Nostra, and more, down to a local citizens’ group called simply “NoMose.”
In one of many reports, Italia Nostra summarized its concerns: “The dams will render permanent the Lagoon’s environmental imbalance: The deep channels dredged in the last century through its outlets will become concrete. The erosion that is now eating away the Lagoon’s precious wetlands would become permanent, and this rich coastal lagoon, protected by European law, would be transformed into an area of open sea.”
What is so elegantly called a cavaliere d'Italia (knight of Italy), in English is merely the black-winged stilt. Still beautiful, though.
The deepening of the channels to accommodate the cement frame for the caissons has already intensified the tidal flow — I can see and feel it every day. Faster and stronger tides mean many things: More erosion of the bottom sediments (one of the defining characteristics of a lagoon environment), consequent damage to the eelgrass which serves to anchor the sediment and which provide a habitat for many small marine species, and so on up the chain.
My favorite of many favorite ducks is a wintering species called a "tuffetto" (little diver). Their arrival and departure are parentheses around the winter.
There is also great concern about the physical impact of the materials used, specifically the caissons’ zinc plates (zinc is forbidden by European law) as well as the anti-fouling paint, which contains many toxic chemicals such as TBT compounds, assorted heavy metals, and solvents. Coats of anti-fouling paint have to be periodically renewed, so that will contribute another dose of this stuff to the environment. Damage to the lagoon and the Adriatic is seen as virtually inevitable. I must mention that the builders deny this.
Data and forecasts which justify the project have been questioned by many different sources. Some of the data does not appear anywhere but in the builders’ documents.
Engineering: Plenty of engineers from assorted countries, those who are not directly involved in the project, have always voiced doubts about whether it’s likely to work the way it’s supposed to.
Another perspective on the system, which clearly shows the the caissons fitting snugly together, forming a perfectly even wall. It will be great if nothing shifts or leaks.
Some of their concerns are:
- It has never been completely tested.
- The only positive assessment rendered by an independent panel of engineers was restricted to saying whether the design could function as intended — that is, whether it would work as designed. Virtually all other independent evaluations have been extremely cautious, if not negative. No engineers except the builders, to my knowledge, have risked saying whether it should be built. Maybe that’s not what engineers are supposed to do. UNESCO wrote an analysis in 2003 which concisely evaluated the project’s drawbacks, including the meteorological predictions on which it is based.
- There are discernible aspects of the design which must ALWAYS function PERFECTLY (difficult in a salt-water environment),or they won’t perform the way they’re supposed to. For one thing, there is a high risk of the seal between the caissons not being watertight. If water begins to pass between the caissons, the wall they form could be dangerously compromised (fancy word for “weakened”). If the caissons for any reason do not align perfectly, ditto.
- If for some reason encrustation of any sort remains on the caissons and/or their anchoring hinges (salt-water is great for fostering encrustations of minerals and critters), the barrier may not rise in the manner or at the rate necessary.
- If sea-level increases fulfill the darker prophecies, not only will the caissons have to be used more often and kept in place for longer periods of time than predicted (undergoing stresses for which they were not designed), but eventually their maximum height may not be enough.
- After decades of legal battles, the design was already obsolete before construction even began. Thirty years is an eternity in engineering terms. (Imagine buying a car designed 30 years ago.) Whatever its flaws, it should have been modified or updated in some way by now. But no.
Perhaps most important, critics point out that this titanic construction flouts several principles sacred not only to the hydraulic engineers of the Venetian Republic (not exactly amateurs) but also to commonly-accepted principles of environmental and engineering prudence. Those principles are:
- The project should be gradual, to permit evaluation of the results obtained at each stage and, if necessary, permit changes to the original plan. This obviously isn’t the case here.
- The project should be reversible. MOSE obviously isn’t.
- The project should be experimental. By “experimental” the Special Law clearly intends that a project should be tested experimentally before it is definitely approved and funded and built. That never happened.
How did this project ever get approved?
I can’t swear that I know. Here is what I do know: That the project was assigned to the Consorzio Venezia Nuova, a consortium which the city has exclusively authorized (some have used the word “monopoly”) to intervene in the lagoon. This consortium is made up of more than 20 Italian engineering and construction companies — in a word, businessmen. Scientists who promote or defend the project are often consultants for the consortium.
So here we are. It’s too late to be any use, but I’d like to recall a comment by Wendell Berry, the farmer/writer/environmental critic.
“A good solution to a problem,” he said, “is one which does not create new problems.”
Seems kind of obvious, when you think about it.
Next: How will it all come out?
Acqua alta: MOSE will fix everything
Posted by: | CommentsNow that I have pounded the subject of acqua alta into unconsciousness, you may be wondering if there are any solutions. It’s not unreasonable, I guess, to want to suppose that there could be some action(s) that would limit or even prevent water from inconveniently covering your street, even for only two hours.
Certainly many of the articles which continue to appear, year after year – there must be a workshop in a cave where some crazed Geppetto keeps producing stories on how Venice is being engulfed — tend to make it sound as if Venice’s health and future happiness depends almost exclusively on keeping the water out.
This is not acqua alta, it's just acqua.
So let me urge you, before we continue, to disregard, as far as you can, the drizzle of extravagant statements drenching almost every article about this project. Such as comments by journalists in love with their clever way with words (”…soaked Bruno Maglis have become more the rule than the exception…” You’ve got money for Maglis — or for any kind of shoes – but you haven’t figured out that you can take them off to keep them dry? Wow… And by the way, it isn’t true), or this, by an Italian professor of physical oceanography at MIT: (”"The gates are really the only solution.” Really? The only?), or the claim that high water really, really distresses the old people. All the old people I’ve ever talked to are the ones who make the least fuss about it of anybody.
The good news: There is no lack of useful and feasible ideas on how to limit or prevent high water in the city. In fact, we have been inundated by a plethora of proposals, many of them simple, easy, not damaging to the environment and cheap.
The bad news: Only one solution has been chosen, and it is none of the above. Sometimes referred to as the “floodgate project,” this savior is called MOSE. It is the biggest, most expensive, most drastic, most irreversible, heaviest-impact-on-the-lagoon-as-a-whole solution that anyone could have imagined. I say that because if there were a solution that could have been more drastic and more expensive, they would have picked that one instead.
What is it?
MOSE stands for Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, or Experimental Electromechanical Module. It consists of a sequence of a total of 79 steel caissons — boxes, really – lying on the lagoon floor, which can be raised to form a wall which will block an exceptional incoming tide.
A view from the Adriatic, looking over the Lagoon and the three "mouths," or inlets, through which the tide comes and goes every six hours. (R to l): San Nicolo, Malamocco, Chioggia.
The Venetian lagoon is enclosed by a long strip of barrier islands which block the Adriatic Sea except at three inlets (called “bocche,” or “mouths”) through which the tide passes every six hours, coming in or going out. This exchange of water is crucial to the lagoon’s ecosystem.
How does it work?
Each of the three “mouths” of the lagoon has been dug to accommodate a concrete frame installed on the bottom and sides of the channel. Attached to this frame, by means of hinges, are the aforementioned 79 metal boxes which normally will lie on the channel bottom, filled with water.
These diagrams show the steps involved. Note that one caption states that there 78 of these caissons; there are 79.
If an exceptional high tide is expected (or more than 110 cm [3 1/2 feet]) above median sea level, the water will be pumped out of the boxes and compressed air pumped in which will cause them to rise up and form a wall preventing the water from entering the lagoon. When the tide subsides, these caissons will be filled with water again and they will return to their dormant state on the inlet floor.
When will it be used?
The job of this colossal construction is to prevent — not just any high tide, but an exceptional one — from reaching the city. The frequency of a tide of this magnitude is predicted by the city as being four times a year.
Therefore, any high water up to 110 cm is going to come ashore just as it always has, and we will continue to break out the boots and merchants in low-lying parts of the city will continue to stow their merchandise and keep their squeegees at hand to sweep the receding water out the door. Their keening laments will also be primed and ready to go.
Who thought this up?
As with many large public works, it is the love child of politicians, engineers and builders. In this case, an assortment grouped together as the Consorzio Venezia Nuova (New Venice Consortium). These are not lagoon-huggers. Many of its members are in business, often doing the sort of work that MOSE requires.
1973: The Special Law for Venice is passed, which declares the city’s welfare to be of “preeminent national interest.”
1975: The Ministry of Public Works announces an international competition for project designs which would limit high water. Five projects are accepted for evaluation.
I will leap ahead here and spare you the year-by-year chronicle of yes/no, he said/she said, did so/did not, claims and counterclaims. It’s like Jarndyce and Jarndyce. A full account of this 30-year struggle would be a ponderous assortment of lists of names and companies and government agencies and ministers, environmental organizations, suits and countersuits at every level, from Venice itself to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. By now, the only people in the world who have not been involved in this in some way are you and me.
By now, 63 percent of the work is finished. But the controversy is still very much alive.
Next: Why everybody isn’t excited about it
Acqua alta: reviewing the basics II
Posted by: | CommentsHere are two elements of high water which aren’t usually — perhaps not ever — mentioned, much less interpreted, in the typical story, the kind that likes using emotional words like “invade.” ( As in, “The water invaded the city.” Stormed the battlements. Conquered the kingdom, wrought havoc, death and destruction, setting towns to the torch and sending everyone into slavery. You know, the usual high-water scenario.) Where was I.
Venice is not sitting at mean sea level. That wouldn't make any sense.
One is what the numbers actually mean. Venice does not float like a lily-pad at sea level. The lowest area in the city, the Piazza San Marco, is already 80 cm above the water’s surface when the water is at mean sea-level. Therefore any height that’s reported isn’t as high as it sounds if we were just standing on a street somewhere, measuring upwards from our feet, because the starting number isn’t zero.
Example: 110 cm converts to three and a half feet, which sounds scary. But someone standing in the Piazza San Marco will have water reaching up only 30 cm from their feet, or roughly just below their knees (11 inches). Someone elsewhere in the city might well not have it even that high. Or at all. Because of Point Number Two.
Surf's up near the Rialto Market by the eponymous bridge. Just behind me there's no water on the ground at all, except for some rain puddles.
Point Number Two: Headlines blaring “VENICE IS FLOODED” imply that the entire city, all three square miles of it, is going under for the third time. In fact, a tide up to 110 cm will dampen 14 percent of the city. Not a huge percentage, I think one must admit. Up at 140 cm (the relatively rare Code Red, “exceptional high water”), it covers almost 50 percent of the city, which is more impressive, except that the frequency of a tide this high is fairly low — five times in the ten years between 2000 and 2010. And still, one isn’t referring to every square inch of Venice. Amost half of the city is still high and dry.
For all of Venice to be flooded, the tide would have to rise well beyond 200 cm (the epochal acqua alta of November 4, 1966 reached 194 cm). The city’s tide office doesn’t estimate above 200 cm, at which level 86 percent of the city would be underwater. I don’t say that would be entertaining, but it would be so rare that I’d suggest saving the doomsday vocabulary for it, and not waste the drama on more mundane tidal events.
This is the only example of this extreme solution to acqua alta I've seen so far. What it implies to me is that whoever owns this property isn't expecting to be available to sweep out any water. Or that whatever's inside is so valuable that it probably should be in a vault somewhere. My own experience leads me to wonder if a seal this tight wouldn't potentially force the incoming water up inside through some hitherto unnoticed crevice.
Our little hovel is safe up to the three-tone level. At four tones, it’s time to take the tarps off the lifeboats. We discovered that last December 1 at about 9:15, when the water reached the four-tone level and began to slide under our front door. Then I discovered it was also coming through a fissure in the wall under the kitchen sink, as well as up through a fissure in the stone flooring. That was more exciting than almost anything I can remember. So please don’t suppose that my viewpoint is the result of my not having to worry about water under the bed. I just want to recalibrate the popular perception of this phenomenon. Obnoxious. Not catastrophic.
We have a calendar, on sale at any newsstand, which traces the predicted tide levels each day of the year. But those are only estimates based on what’s normal. For more timely updates, I check the data on the city’s Tide Center website. You can also sign up to be alerted of the rising tide via text message (SMS) on your cell phone.
All these advisories are what make it really hard for me to feel sincerely sorry for anyone who might find that water had caused any damage to goods or appliances. It’s not like it comes like a thief in the night.
I leave you with the key phrase which ought to simplify the whole business if you’re here long enough to need to know it: Hip waders. Just do it.
The fact that the pump is working demonstrates the limitations of the barrier across the door. However, it's clear that without the barrier things would be much worse. I assume he's doing rough calculations of the power of the pump relative to the speed of the rising tide.
Acqua alta: reviewing the basics I
Posted by: | CommentsLet’s start with the most basic fact of all: Venice is sitting in the middle of a tidal lagoon. This means surrounded by water that rises and falls. I don’t mean to keep harping on this, because I know it sounds really dumb, but not much dumber than all those stories that get published and broadcast that make it sound as if water on the ground here were stranger and more upsetting than four sharks singing “Shine On, Harvest Moon.”
How high the water will rise might vary from the official prediction based on a few factors, but when it’s looking imminent I’ve definitely got at least one eye on the barometer, the wind sock (on the computer) and the moon. Wait, that makes three eyes. Well, you know what I mean.
This shopkeeper near the Piazza San Marco is keeping his high-water records this way.
Data on the tides began to be recorded regularly after an exceptional high water in 1867 (153 cm above average sea level). In 1908 various monitoring stations were installed to more precisely measure the height of the tides, and in 1914 the pertinent data on the barometric pressure and the direction and force of the wind were added.
For events longer ago, historians can only turn to various chronicles and accounts in which the quantities aren’t always easy to assess. As in: “The water rose high enough to ruin the wells.” A flooded well would, in my view, be much more distressing than some water on the floor, seeing as the supply of fresh H2O in Venice was not infinite.
The main high-water factors are the following:
The season. If the acqua is going to be alta, it will usually be between September and April. Articles which refer to its frequency are often misleading because they use aggregate numbers which give the impression that it’s a monthly occurrence all year long. While there might be pesky clusters of high water events in winter (as happened this year), the likelihood plummets to June; it has never been recorded in July and August.
Phase of the moon. The tides are highest and lowest when the moon is full and when it’s new. Actually, the moon is the only component to this phenomenon which isn’t even the tiniest bit likely to swerve from the forecast.
Atmospheric pressure. When it’s low, the water is high. When it’s high, the water is low. If we tap on the barometer and see that it’s gone to the bottom of the scale, there’s no getting around the likelihood that the water will be high. The barometer won’t tell us how high, but we can look out the door and make a guess. A barometer is a great friend to have because it cannot tell a lie.
Wind. If the scirocco is blowing, it will definitely aggravate the situation. The scirocco is also obnoxious because it’s warm and humid (get one blowing in the summer and you’ll wonder if you took the wrong exit and ended up in Amazonia). But as it’s from the southeast, it will blow into the lagoon and — putting it very simplistically — push against the tide and prevent it from going out in a timely and efficient fashion. On the contrary, it seems to work very hard to keep all the water in the lagoon all at once. I try to avoid anthropomorphizing the natural world here, but I have to say that sometimes it seems like the wind just does it on purpose.
When a strong scirocco is blowing, I don’t hear wind so much as I do the heavy surf rolling up in close-order-drill on the Lido’s Adriatic beaches. It’s a deep, rumbling sort of roar off in the distance, impossible to mistake for anything else.
Yes, the water is rising in the Piazza San Marco. But the owner of the cafe clearly is not too concerned, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered setting up all those chairs and tables.
There is a warning system to alert the city that within an hour, water will be rising in the Piazza San Marco (the lowest point in the city) and, by extension, at other various low-lying areas. This information comes from a monitoring system at the mouth of the lagoon at San Nicolo, and at other points in the lagoon.
Until two years ago, the citywide warning system was a few sirens which emitted a sequence of rising wails. The first time I heard them they woke me from a deep sleep in the middle of the night — a sudden violent tone swooping upward, overlapped by another one just following it, and then by a third. Scared the hoo out of me — it was like the Three Weird Sisters in Macbeth going mad.
But what they didn’t tell you back then was how much water was going to come ashore.
Two years ago, the system was refined. Now there is only one siren-swoop, after which comes a steady tone which indicates the maximum predicted height. One tone = 110 centimeters above sea level. Two tones = 120 centimeters. Three tones = 130. And four tones = 140 and above. This is what they sound like. I can tell you they’re very effective. There may not be any way you can ultimately prevent water from coming indoors, but you cannot possibly say you had no warning.
This tide-level notice board at Piazzale Roma gives the height of the tide in real time, indicates whether it is rising or falling, and what time the next maximum (or in this case, minimum) will be. And how high or low. Very useful, if you happen to be at Piazzale Roma.
Acqua alta: some plusses and minuses
Posted by: | CommentsI realize it may sound strange to refer to there being “plusses” to acqua alta. Let me just say I don’t mean “plusses” in the sense of winning a large chunk of the lottery. But there are in fact some positive aspects to it.
The tide has dropped and left our street looking clean but feeling a little icky under our feet.
For instance, many Venetians have told me that acqua alta is a good thing because it washes the streets. This is true. Unfortunately, it also deposits a fine layer of silty slime. And while it does remove some of the dog poop, it also leaves detritus behind, so the general landscape isn’t much prettier than it was before the water rose. So, you know. We could go on like this, pro and con, all day.
But let me point out something that is hardly ever remarked on, in the many and varying accounts of this event: Acqua alta is actually a very good thing for the barene (the lagoon’s marshy wetland islets). If we can focus our minds briefly on something other than our own immediate convenience, it’s worth remembering that the lagoon has its own needs which are being met ever more rarely. So if it likes a good soak, I don’t see why it (by which I mean the whole ecosystem: microorganisms, plants, birds, etc.) can’t have it. Also — speaking selfishly — rowing when the water is high is magic.
A view of one of the nearly submerged barene in the northern lagoon, enjoying its bath almost as much as we're enjoying rowing around in a little Venetian sandolo.
Back in town, here are a few of the positive and less positive aspects of acqua alta, as I see them:
- It doesn’t last long. Acqua alta is a tidal event. Unlike your raging rivers, it has a predictable time frame. The tide comes in for six hours, and goes out for six hours. True, sometimes it doesn’t go out as much as it should, but it eventually does go out. This coming and going means that it’s really bothersome for only about two hours.
- It’s fairly tranquil. Inexorable, I grant you. Anyone who hasn’t watched the water rising near one’s front door (as we have) hasn’t fully grasped the fundamental meaning of “Time and tide wait for no man.” But the typical reports of high water in Venice make it sound as if Niagara Falls is pouring through your living-room window (CNN once referred to the “Adriatic bursting its banks.” Banks? Bursting? Are we suddenly in Holland?), when in reality it’s more like the bathtub slowly overflowing. Water in both cases, I agree, but not really the same.
- It is predictable. True, raging rivers are also predictable, but some of the factors influencing acqua alta, such as the direction of the wind, can change. In addition, we get plenty of warning. If you don’t want to wait for the sirens to blare, just look at the barometer. (You do have a barometer, don’t you?) The lower the pressure, the higher the water. Check the sky: Full or new moon? There will be more pronounced highs and lows. Wind from the southeast? Not good; it will prevent (or slow) the regular retreat of the tide. We want a southwest wind (garbin) or better yet, northeast (bora). Those will settle acqua alta’s hash.
I’ll tell you what’s really annoying about acqua alta, apart from the distraught articles that keep getting published. It’s not that you have to put on boots for a few hours. It’s that:
- When the tide goes out, it leaves all kinds of detritus
This is a modest example of a street not long after the tide has gone out. Clumps of eelgrass and bits of reeds are unavoidable and even not so ugly. It's the other stuff, pieces of plastic and styrofoam and general junk littering every wet street that are ugly. Unavoidable, fine. But there is no telling when, if ever, someone is going to sweep it up.
all over the sidewalks. Stuff that was just floating gently comes to rest on whatever pavement was just below it when the last inch retreated. Also, if anyone puts out a plastic bag of garbage the night before (yes, despite the warning sirens — dumb, I agree), that bag will be floating around the street and either settle on the pavement somewhere or drift out to sea. Neither case is highly desirable, though obviously the second is worse.
Once the water lifts your bag of garbage, it's not yours anymore. So hey, let it go wherever or however it wants to, who cares.
- The garbage-people will be extremely slow in collecting the trash and/or — make that just “or,” they can’t seem to do both in the same day, even when the sun is shining — sweeping away the detritus, which means the streets look more or less like a slum. The garbage-people are slow because … I’ve tried to understand this… It may be because they are already so desperately overworked that high water adds an insuperable burden (you’re believing this, yes?), and because they are otherwise urgently and industriously occupied in setting up or taking down the temporary walkways over the high water (sometimes yes, mostly no). But they seem to get a special pass on their normal work when the acqua is even moderately alta. I can’t explain it, except to compare it to the mysterious sore throat which a kid who doesn’t want to go to school suddenly develops when it rains or snows.
- Transport gets all scrambled up,
not only for taxis and barges but also some vaporettos and/or motoscafos. They have to change their normal routes because the high water prevents them from passing under certain bridges. There are alternatives by which they resolve this temporary dilemma, but it adds inconvenience to your own trajectory. As for heavy work boats and taxis, they either have to pick another route from A to B, or wait for the tide to turn. Tiresome, true, but hardly the stuff of calamity. - Your front door swells. If you have been so unfortunate as to have even an inch of water come inside (and for many people, this just means it has reached the edge of a staircase leading up to their apartment, not the apartment itself), and your front door is made of wood, it will soak up the water and then want to stick. It will take a while to dry out. Like, maybe weeks. You may end up having to sand it down some. Irritating. Not disastrous.
Acqua alta? We'll just put that lamppost up higher. This was one of the more clever responses to the big one of November 4, 1966. Also, you can see that the dogs love it.
I think if you’re going to live here you need to accept the fact that you’re sitting in the middle of a tidal lagoon. If that creates really too many problems, it might be good for you to consider moving. At least to the second floor, or maybe across the bridge to the mainland. No more worries about the tide coming ashore over there. All you have to deal with there, even as nearby as Mestre, are rivers and rain and totally inadequate storm drains. Which leads to flooded basements full of water that actually has little or no natural urge to recede. Fun.
No emotional articles about that, though. Who cares about a foot of water in somebody’s garage? Nobody — at least not until that somebody snaps a picture of a person rowing around the car or trailer.
