Venetian Environmental Issues | Venice: I am not making this up

MOSE cleaning day/year/decade, and more

October 24, 2024 10 Comments

One morning not long ago I noticed this unusual bit of traffic trundling along toward San Marco and onward to the shipyards at Porto Marghera. This grotty yellow object was instantly recognizable as one of the caissons that form the MOSE floodgate barriers.

As you may recall, they are fixed to the lagoon bottom and raised when needed — “needed” being a word now open to unexpectedly large definition.

More than ten years have passed since this caisson was installed. This is more than enough time for masses of mollusks to attach themselves to the convenient metal surfaces. This fact has been bothering the people in charge for a while, in part because the extra weight the creatures add is a potential problem to the functioning of the caissons. For lovers of statistics, this caisson is 20 meters (65.6 feet) wide, 9 meters (29.5 feet) long, 3 meters (9.8 feet) high, with a total weight of 350 tons.

The MOSE floodgate barriers were raised for the first time on October 3, 2020, to great amazement and jubilation, and have been raised 60 times in the following three years for a total cost of 10 million euros. (That’s what it cost to raise them, not to build them.)

Expensive? Not really, when we now read that cleaning and maintaining them (a process that began last year) is estimated to cost 63 million euros per year. What? It turns out that this is the sum allocated per year for cleaning; if each gate costs one million to clean, and let’s say optimistically that three could be cleaned per year, it’s unlikely those funds will be exhausted any time soon. Unless other problems were to present themselves, of course, which could totally happen.

“Maintenance of MOSE 189 million arriving for three years.” (May 6 2022). That seems to be where 63 million came from; that’s the amount that earmarked for each year. But as we see, that will never be spent per year if only one or two or even — dream on — three gates were cleaned each year.

I can’t keep up with all these numbers. “MOSE: One million to clean each gate” (Jan. 19 2023). That sounds normal, at this point. But that would mean a total of 78 million over the next 26 years. Any financial forecast stretching that far into the future is bound to be fanciful. You see how the pixie dust makes it hard to see anything clearly, much less understand it.

MOSE figures always sound extreme. All these millions of digits fall from myriad bank accounts like cosmic pixie dust on poor old spavined, rumpsprung Venice and its spavined ledgers and reports and endless requests for yet more money.

We are long since accustomed to bulletins involving millions of euros. Here’s one example: “538 million arriving to finish MOSE” (December 3, 2022). It sounds like a lot, but you can be sure it will turn out not to have been enough.

Or this: “MOSE one million in four days to defend Venice” (Nov. 25, 2022). That was an unusual period of frequent high tides, and that was still when “one million” sounded like a lot. By now it sounds like a fire-sale bargain.

“Ten million spent in two years to raise MOSE” (June 29, 2022). Okay wait — in November it cost only one million to raise MOSE four times. So this must mean that in one year it cost five million…no wait, ten million divided by 211,000 (the cost of each raising) is 45 times. But they were raised 60 times. So 60 times 211,000 is 12,660,000. Pixie dust!

But back to the repairs. The caissons languished underwater for 11 years, accumulating crud, until July 5, 2023, when the first of the 78 caissons was taken to the shipyard of Fincantieri in Marghera for spiffing and fixing. So far, though, only three have been cleaned. The work can be done only in the summer because that’s when high water is usually doesn’t occur. At this rate the last gate will go through the process in 2050. Time to start over.

As for cost, Fincantieri has estimated that cleaning and repair will cost more than twice what it cost to build them. Awkward. And of course that number will change, by which I mean increase.

But money well spent, yes? In the three years since the inaugural gate-raising, the barriers have been raised 60 times, for a cost of 10 million euros ($10,850,875). All those digits! Pixie dust!

The “mouths” are clearly visible here; they aren’t all the same width, hence the caissons aren’t all the same size. Bit of not-actually-useless trivia.

This photograph shows the stretch of yellow barriers raised across the northernmost of the three inlets to the lagoon. Each inlet is called a “mouth of the port” (*bocca di* *porto*), and here the “mouth of the Lido” is divided by a constructed island into two sections. The lower is referred to as Treporti and the farther is San Nicolo’. (ytali.it, unattributed image)

Perhaps this detail makes the positions clearer. We are looking south, with the Adriatic on the left.

A recent inspection — the Gazzettino reports — revealed that the condition of the 20 caissons at Treporti is “good.” But inspection has yet to take place on the 21 at San Nicolo’, the 19 at Malamocco, and the 18 at Chioggia. No telling when those inspections will be made, and there’s even less telling as to when action will be taken on whatever is found.

The simoom of pixie dust from the Accounts Payable department also blows from the zone of the jack-up. This is the rig that was built to raise and transport each caisson to the repair shop and back. It cost 53,000,000 euros ($57,000,000). But after years of construction and repairs and what-not, in 2014 it was discovered that the jack-up wasn’t yet ready for work, and it still isn’t, ten years later.

The jack-up has been living its best life for years moored by the Arsenal. At the moment, not only is it not working, it’s in the drydock by the huge crane. I made this picture in 2017. It has remained there since then, on its way to becoming another Venetian monument. In all fairness, it’s clear that if the gates weren’t scheduled to be removed for cleaning, there wasn’t anything for the jack-up to do but sit there, accumulating its own crop of mollusks and algae.

The jack-up in drydock. I took this picture a few days ago. No news about how long it will be there, or what they’re doing, or how much it will cost, or anything.

But not to worry, there is the “Cavaletta” from the Fagioli company that does the same job as the jack-up and costs less. Wait, what?

Here the “Cavaletta” lifts the detached caisson before loading it onto the platform to be towed to the mainland. This construction is ideal for the task at the Lido, but can’t be used at Malamocco because the caissons there are too long for it. So the jack-up will have to be used, whether it’s ready or … not?

When MOSE finally got to work in 2020, the authorities stated that it would be raised when the tide was forecast to reach 140 cm above mean sea level, a category listed as “exceptional” acqua alta. But after the first few times the gates went up and the water in the canals did not even reach the streets, I could sense what was going to happen. And it did.

Nobody wanted water underfoot anymore. So we heard that the gates would be raised when the forecast was for 130 cm maximum height of tide. Then when it was for 120 cm. It has just been lowered yet again to 110 cm. It’s like an auction in reverse — the prize goes to the lowest bidder.

At this point, why not just pump all the water out of the lagoon, and be done with it? Save everybody so much trouble — and money!

But doubts have always been raised, and they continue to be raised, concerning the system’s short- and long-term prospects, the effect on the lagoon, costs (of course), and also how inconveniently illegal these recent gate-raisings at lower tide levels actually are.

To summarize and give some perspective is a letter (translated by me) written on October 10, 2024 by Andreina Zitelli and re-published on ytali.it. I’m leaving the link in case you were to be interested in reading other articles/opinions by her, though they’re mostly in Italian.

“MOSE inadeguato. Come volevasi dimostrare” (MOSE inadequate. As one wanted to demonstrate)

Dear Director,

It emerges clearly from the last meeting of those responsible for its management that the Experimental Electromechanical Module (Mo.S.E.) — not by chance that the opinion of the national Environmental Impact Statement of 1998 was and remains negative — is not the system that can provide for the safeguarding of Venice. Mo.S.E. was designed to block the “exceptional high waters,” not to regulate the lower and medium high tides that progressively invade the urban areas of the islands.

The conflict between the Port and the City was also one of the critical elements at the base of the negative opinion, a conflict, for that matter, stressed also by international experts. Finally, from the environmental point of view the frequent closures are in conflict with the needs of the exchange between the sea and the lagoon. The conflict between Port, City and Lagoon can’t be resolved with Mo.S.E.

As part of the Evaluation Group that expressed the negative opinion of the national Environmental Impact Statement on the Mo.S.E. project, I feel obliged to remind those who today are concerned to safeguard Venice from the high water at or below 100 cm that:

MoS.E. isn’t the system to defend Venice from medium-low and medium-high water;
the height of 110 cm — established by the decisions taken in the political quarters — cannot be regulated by the closing of Mo.S.E. (it was one of the principal reasons for the negative opinion) for the fact that the variability of the phenomenon and the problems of the forecasts cause operative uncertainty;
The model forecast of the 110 cm height falls within a reliable interval of +/- 20 cm from the tide forecast. To shorten the time for deciding (whether to raise the gates or not, N.B.) causes false alarms and leads to discretionary operative decisions, if not even to false closures;
For these reasons it is even more unacceptable to maneuver the Mo.S.E. at tide heights even lower than 110 cm;
The height of 110 cm — as the Opinion put forward — entails such uncertainties as to render useless and damaging for more functional, environnmental and economic aspects, entrust to Mo.S.E. the defense of the City from the medium tides;
the increase in the cases of high water, connected to more frequent tides of low-medium size, aggravates the incompatibility of Mo.S.E. toward the urban, port and environmental object of Safeguarding.
The lagoon is just as complicated as Venice is. Just a thought to ponder.

There is also an aspect that’s hardly secondary to consider.

The quota of 110 cm isn’t part of — as comprehensible also just by common sense beyond the conclusions of the study of the series of the phenomenon — the category “exceptional high water” referred to by the Law 798/84….

The closings of Mo.S.E. that are not aimed at regulating exceptional high water are to be considered against the letter of the law.

Of the discretional use of Mo.S.E. beyond the purpose established by the Law 798/84 the Public Prosecutor of the Financial Court should intervene for the accounting aspects of the extra costs that are certainly not attributable to harmful situations for which is would be possible to make an exception.

I realize MOSE is supposed to help the city, but it isn’t doing anything to help the lagoon.

Further, it should be remembered that Mo.S.E. has not yet demonstrated the capacity to keep up with a real and serious exceptional high tide that could have a catastrophic result, a result that can’t be excluded.

It also remains to consider the difficulty of assuming the decision of closure in the face of extreme weather and tide conditions in the absence of procedures that define the operational limits of the maneuverability and closing of the gates of Mo.S.E. in extreme conditions.

Who will take the responsibility of closing in the absence of a defined procedure?

Other and wider actions and interventions at the territorial level were planned, beginning with the reduction of the depth of the maritime canals and the “mouths of the port,” to realize diffuse urban defenses (as proposed then by Venetian engineers and architects) to join numerous experiments of raising the ground, to regulate the water coming from floods on the mainland.” That is, as everyone knows, many other solutions were proposed to defend the city from acqua alta, but MOSE steamrolled them all.

I could go on, but that’s enough. So let’s conclude that MOSE needs to be cleaned and maintained, nobody can be sure it’s going to keep working if it continues to be raised far more often than predicted, and it will cost craptons of money forever.

A glimpse of the future? I can’t know if this person is being sarcastic or prophetic.

Acqua Alta

check that barn door

January 11, 2024 20 Comments

Worth protecting? Pretty sure we can agree on that.

May it be far from me to herald the new year with a broken string or rusty trombone, but although I have almost completely lost interest in reporting on Venice’s daily misadventures, I can’t resist this one. I should, but I can’t, because what happened seems like it ought to raise at least a chuckle. Instead, I think it’s more deserving of a resounding raspberry.

You have heard of the Great Man theory of history? I propose the unfortunate incident of January 6 as an example of the theory, yet to be named, of the phenomenon by which is is almost guaranteed that the simplest task will also prove to be the most important, and the easiest to forget at the moment of crisis. Or put it this way: If something is going wrong, the office tasked with providing measures against wrong-going will be closed for the holiday weekend, call back on Monday.

Brief context: Vast work was completed in November 2022 to encircle the basilica of San Marco with a glass wall to defend it from acqua alta. Too many years, rounded off to the nearest century, of saltwater soaks have damaged the mosaics and marble columns of the narthex, damage I have seen with my own eyes.

Although the MOSE system had finally become functional by then, the lagoon barriers were intended to be raised (it was said) only when the tide was predicted to reach 140 cm above mean sea level. It costs hundreds of thousands of euros each time to raise the floodgates, and they are only useful for a few hours, so the deciders have to decide if the expected height of the water justifies the cost. That is a very tricky calculation to make, as you can imagine.

Water outside, dry stones inside. Seems like the problem has been solved, yet this is only a temporary measure. A mastodontic project to raise the Piazza itself is being discussed, in which case the glass wall will be removed. Then again, this temporary construction may well follow the Accademia Bridge into the category of “temporary forever.”

Of course, as soon as that level was stipulated as raising-gates time there came wails and shrieks from all sides, people objecting to the (to them) unreasonably high limit. So the city rapidly backtracked, and the likely level for floodgate-raising dropped by tens; it went down to 130, then 120, then 110, then even 100. It was like an auction in reverse where the bids are decreasing. In any case it appears that the cutoff height seems to be slightly negotiable.

The Piazza San Marco stands at 85 cm above mean sea level, so it is destined to be damp even with the most modest inundations. And the basilica couldn’t be expected to tolerate small water on the stone while waiting to be protected from big water. Therefore the highly excellent idea of protecting the basilica alone was mooted, and budgeted, and scheduled, and accomplished.

Nobody thought they were ever going to see this again. This was the morning of December 11, 2008.

I thought this was beautiful when I saw it, it made me think of Atlantis. But now I know better. Or worse, if you want to put it that way. Much worse.

And yet, on the morning of January 6, water rose to a mere 97 cm in the Piazza; not enough to require MOSE to be activated, by any means, but enough to drench the narthex of the basilica just as it had in 1859 (made up. Could have put 1759. 1620. 1492.) The very thing that 5 million euros had been spent to prevent just up and happened all by itself.

Because there are openings in the glass barrier wall to permit people to enter the church. Those openings must be closed with the typical metal barrier, otherwise there’s no point in having the wall. Workers (usually from the two construction companies involved) have to put up the barriers. And somebody has to tell them to do it. But if you haven’t got the workers because they’re all off duty for the holiday weekend, does it matter who is responsible for ordering all hands on deck? Of course it does.

Sensible, simple, and easy. The lower metal barrier makes the whole arrangement perfect. Amazing how ineffective the glass wall is when the metal barrier isn’t there.

It’s not Hadrian’s Wall, but it’s impressive. Too bad it’s all just for show if those little metal rectangles are missing.

Not made up. The workers were absent. The person who provides for emergency interventions somehow did not check the tide forecast, even though everybody in Venice does it about ten times a day. Perhaps that person didn’t check because he/she/they were also away somewhere. In any case, for anybody to have usefully been on tide-watching duty they’d have had to be at the basilica before 6:00.

Please recall that January 6 was Epiphany, and a Saturday, so plenty of workers and employees of all sorts were probably still enjoying the Christmas holidays.

By the time that personnel at the basilica realized that nobody was coming to insert the barriers to block the tide, the church was taking on water like H.M.S. Indefatigable after striking the reef. The narthex was flooded.

Whoever left the barn door — I mean, basilica-gate — open must have spent a lively interlude in somebody’s office on Monday morning attempting to explain. Anyone listening at the door might well have heard one phrase shouted for 15 minutes: “You had ONE JOB.”

This is how it looks when all the pieces are in place. You see the entrance walkway passes neatly over the metal barrier. If the water were to rise higher, an extra metal barrier would be placed on top of the first one. Or maybe MOSE would be activated. Or something. All that’s needed is people to actually make it all happen…..

Acqua Alta

MOSE makes history

October 3, 2020 26 Comments

I’m not going to lie: I never thought I’d see this day. Either it would never come, or by the time it did, I’d have long since turned into tera de bocal (clay for making chamberpots, as they put it here). But here we are, or more specifically, there it was this morning — the Adriatic to the right, the lagoon 70 cm lower to the left, and the vaunted MOSE floodgates ensuring for the first time that the twain shall never meet.

Years, decades, lifetimes have been devoted to constructing (and paying for) this thing, and I had little (in ErlaSpeak that means “no”) expectation that the gates would ever function. But they did. Allow me to doff my chapeau and say I’m not only astounded, but slightly weirded out. Because hearing three signals on the warning siren at 8:00 AM put all my nerves on high alert, even though we’re not in danger till four signals warn us of the possibility of the tide’s exceeding our personal domestic ground-level safe limit of 150 cm. Instead: Nothing.

I think everybody’s nerves have been a little tense, after two days of forecasts predicting an acqua alta to peak today at 135 cm above mean sea level at 12:05 PM. But at 9:00 AM (and at a mere 70 cm of rising tide) it was instead the long-discussed, -doubted, -reviled floodgates that rose, and stopped the sea at whatever the watery analogy of “in its tracks” may be. At the measuring station at the Diga Sud of the Lido the tide was at 119 cm, but the water at the Punta della Salute — bacino of San Marco, basically — was at 69 cm. When the tide turned, just after noon, it had reached 129 cm, but in the city was only a paltry 73.

This graph clearly shows the track of the tide, from its lowest point at 6:00 AM to the moment when the gates began to rise. Game, as they say, over.

We went outside to look at our canal. The water wasn’t moving. A lost pear, fallen from the fruit/vegetable boat upstream, was bobbing tranquilly in one place when it ought long since to have been carried off by the rising (or, by then, falling) tide.

Even on a normal day, the water in the canal is almost always moving at some speed, in some direction; only briefly, twice a month, does the tide pause in what is called the morte de aqua (“death of the water”). But here it was, stock still. It might as well have been in the bathtub. And so it remained until some time after the Adriatic began to withdraw; I suppose that didn’t need to be said, but perhaps someone other than myself might have forgotten that you wouldn’t lower the barrier until the sea was at least even with the level of water in the lagoon.

I didn’t used to think of 135 cm as anything more than “God, this is annoying.” But I think it’s fair to say that the doomsday inundation of November 11-12, 2019 is still too screamingly fresh in everybody’s mind to allow the casual return of “Sure, this is Venice, what do you expect?” Any tide above normal now appears potentially apocalyptic. And if our nerves were slightly on edge, so were those of the hopeful travelers who had booked hotel rooms and then, having heard early mentions of the dreaded words “acqua alta,” quickly canceled the reservations.

That’s too bad, because they missed a verifiably historic moment. And I’m glad I was here to see that pear not going anywhere in our canal.

The breakwater at San Nicolo’ on the Lido was an excellent spot for watching this epic event. This clip gives a sense of the force of the wind, always a crucial player on Team Flood Venice. This morning it was up to 41 kph (25 mph).

In case the still photograph above doesn’t convey the dynamic of what’s happening, this video from Corriere della Sera (particularly at the beginning and end of the clip) gives a glimpse of the force of the tide, as seen against the barriers as they rise, one by one. Fun fact: It took one hour and 17 minutes to raise all 78 of the gates, so the process obviously needs to start in a timely manner and not wait till the last OMG minute.

But this is astonishingly beautiful: Noon today in the Piazza San Marco, the moment of the peak tide which ought to have covered the pavement with some 45 cm/17 inches of lagoon. The only water that dampened the stones here came from the clouds.

Note: Two videos, and all of the images with the exception of the water in the Piazza San Marco, were forwarded to me by friends via WhatsApp, so I am unable to give appropriate credit to their sources.

Acqua Alta, Water

Waterworld again

June 11, 2020 4 Comments

It seems as if there is just about every form and manifestation of water to be had around here, at some point or other.

To take an extreme example, we had some weather yesterday evening. A friend sent me this clip of the scene at the Rialto Bridge (I don’t know who made it, but I absolutely wish I’d been there). All that’s missing are a few spawning salmon and a hungry bear.

And then there is The Drainpipe.

Lino is obsessed by this drainpipe, and I can’t say I blame him. I’m not qualified to suggest a different setup of the pipe, but if somebody had wanted to find a solution I bet they would have.

The reason isn’t so much the pipe, in itself, but how blithely it makes itself at home over a rather worthwhile plaque. Seems rude — that’s what the issue comes down to. It’s the kind of thing I’d have been worked-up about, back before obsession-fatigue set in. (Translated by me): “Restored the aforementioned two rooms by reason of Domenico Marchio Celsi by his heirs in the year 1686.” I suppose it looked just fine for 300 years or so, then progress intervened. As it does.

This unhappy sight is out there for anybody to see — how embarrassing — who takes a short-cut down a very small and narrow side street near us. Does it seem wise to order a new street-level door made of iron in a place where salty water is almost guaranteed to soak it? “Gosh, look at that,” Lino said. “Wow.” Or let me put it this way: Seeing that there are methods for removing rust from marble, does it seem wise to leave it this way at the entrance to an apartment that’s rented to tourists? First impressions and all.

Not made up — the door leads to one of the thousands of rentable apartments in town.

The house next door was not stricken, as you see — the entrance is higher, which always helps, and the door is made of wood. Not perfect either, considering how wood swells when wet, though I don’t know if that happened here. And something regrettable happened to the stone step and its underpinnings. That’s a thing about Venice — even when everything is bone dry, water still has the last word.

There are plenty of signs still visible of the damage caused by the hideous high water of November 12, 2019. This is in our doctor’s office. You see how intelligent the builders were in placing the electrical outlets up so high. They may have thought they were exaggerating, but not really.

People sometimes ask me how deep the water is in the canals. And I always ask, “At high tide, or at low tide?” And they go, “Ummmmm…..”.

The extreme low tides in winter went on longer than usual a few months ago. As long as you have enough water to keep the boat afloat, you’re fine — but only if you’ve figured out a way to climb onto (or off) your boat in a way that doesn’t threaten you with bodily harm.

Our boat, second from the bottom of the frame, presents an unreasonable challenge at low tide. Life, limb, and the pursuit of happiness — in this situation, you can either plummet onto the boat from the fondamenta, or on your return you can attempt to scale the wall with no tools at all. I finally bought a rope ladder.

This is a simple, classic Venetian boat called a sandolo; it can be bigger or smaller, but this is the essential shape of several everyday boats. Just setting the scene here, giving a sense of scale to clarify the next photographs.

Let me present one of my own favorite fixations: How the boat-builder made such a rookie mistake as to put the water-draining hole (“ombrinale”) where the water doesn’t flow. It’s easy to see the rainwater that has collected on the bow; the boat is intentionally stored tilting forward in order to aid the drainage.

But in this case, the water has collected upstream, if you will, and has no way to drain out by itself. You can see the hole helplessly sitting by itself on the right side of the wooden barrier, and the accumulated water sitting equally helplessly on the other side. It’s like Pyramus and Thisbe. Let’s say anybody can make a mistake (the worker never read the plans? Had never encountered a boat before? Or water? Or gravity?). All that needed to be done to solve the problem was just to cut another hole on the upstream side. But as you see, here we are.

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