Sinking Venice

By Ellen Knickmeyer Copyright 1998 Associated Press December 2, 1998

After 10 years and 256 billion lire (dlrs 150 million) in studies, it's deadline time for Italy's government on an ambitious sea-barrier project to shield ever-sinking Venice from the ever-rising Adriatic.

After years of waiting for a decision, let alone action, the water-logged people of low-lying areas of Venice have had it up to here with studies and up to here with flooding.

"Yes, this high," the Rev. Mario Senigaglia of St. Stefano says, chopping sideways with his hand to show the level of the water that washed into his 14th-century church, scattering its 18th-century pews.

"Here," merchant Elizabeta Rosato says, gesturing toward the foot of her jewelry showcase to mark the height of floods that regularly shut down the shops lining St. Mark's Square.

"Up to here," vendor Vittorio Salis says at his pigeon-food stand in the middle of the cobblestone square, indicating a point on his rubber-booted legs well above pigeon level.

Venetians know it as "acqua alta:" high water. Pushed by tides and wind, high water of 80 cms (32 inches) or more flooded St. Mark's Square and other low-lying areas of the city 79 times in 1997. That would have been a record if not for the unprecedented 101 times the year before.

When acqua alta hits, "We don't work," Salis says. "The whole city stops."

Venice has been coping with acqua alta by relying increasingly on plank walkways thrown down on metal sawhorses and on rubber boots hotels hand them out to tourists for a deposit. When the water level is too high, stranded tourists fret in their hotels and idled workers stay home.

"The lure of Venice is the water but certainly not to splash around in," said James Quaile of Turnersville, New Jersey, lined up with his family on a bleacher-like walkway leading into St. Mark's.

Project Moses would confront the flooding at its source: the Adriatic.

Engineers propose putting barriers 30 meters (98 feet) tall on the seabed at three entrances to the lagoon. The barriers would stay out of sight except during flooding, when the top 2 meters (6 feet) would jut out to block the waves.

The name of the project, evocative as it is of a biblical parting of the waters, is simply a matter-of-fact reference to the mobile gates.

An Environment Ministry committee's decision, already overdue by weeks, is now expected soon.

Slowing the 4.4 trillion lire (dlrs 2.6 billion) project has been the fact that Venice officials themselves are dubious or downright dismissive. Flops like a never-finished scheme to build a bridge to Sicily have soured many Italians on big projects, leaving some fearing Project Moses would be another boondoggle-by-the-bay.

Armando Danella, a city director in the project, insists the sea barriers are simply unnecessary.

"There are inconveniences and damages in Venice due to the flooding, but it is all relative," Danella was quoted by Italy Daily newspaper as saying. "No one is dying here."

Rosata, the jewelry saleswoman, refers to that as the city leaders' "let-them-wear-gumboots" attitude.

But many environmentalists and their political allies oppose the project as well, saying global warming means the floodgates eventually will be up more often than down, ultimately sealing the city from the sea.

Venice, once the maritime power of the world, would be left an artificial theme park for gondola-riding tourists.

Better, opponents say, to use less drastic measures, including raising the foundations and pavements of Venice.

Project Moses' backers say drastic measures are what it takes: With the city settling due partly to past groundwater pumping and the oceans surging due partly to global warming, the sea now lapping at St. Mark's Square is projected to rise anywhere from 13 to 94 cms (5 inches to 37 inches) by the end of the next century.

Salis, now ankle-deep in pigeons at his stand in the square, thinks he sees what the future holds for Venice, unless something big is done. "Acqua alta," he says. "Always acqua alta."

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