A research project

Mareno Settimo

The establishment of the SNIA Viscosa – SAICI industrial complex in Torviscosa in 1938 immediately caused environmental problems in the Marano lagoon, where industrial waste from production processes was discharged. As early as 1939, fishermen from Marano were the first to protest the damage to fish fauna and fishing valleys. After the factory was expanded in 1940, the fishermen’s complaints became increasingly insistent.

On July 31, 1942, the Prefect of Udine asked all the Podestàs of the Province to provide copies of the permits authorizing industrial discharges into public waters within their respective territories. Following this request, on August 11, the Podestà of Torviscosa, Franco Marinotti, asked the President of SAICI (who was also Franco Marinotti) whether the company had authorization to discharge its industrial effluents into public waters. On August 31, SAICI (that is, again Franco Marinotti) replied to Podestà Marinotti stating that it could not provide the details of the Prefectural Decree because the procedures were still underway. In reality, SAICI only began the authorization process at that time, and the permit was, surprisingly, granted on September 24, 1943—during the interval between the flight of the prefectural officials appointed by Badoglio (September 8) and the arrival of those appointed by the Germans (October 1). It is unclear who was performing the functions of the Prefecture during those chaotic weeks.

In the following decades, SAICI repeatedly denied responsibility for the lagoon’s pollution, even going so far as to claim that “lignosulfonates” were an excellent feed for fish.

The industrial plants built in Torviscosa in the following years were significantly more polluting than the cellulose production facility. In 1950, a mercury-cell chlor-alkali plant began operations. Over its 58 years of activity, this facility discharged approximately 200,000 kg of mercury into public waters, and from there into the Marano lagoon. In 1962, the environmental situation worsened further with the discharge of solvents produced by the new chemical plant for caprolactam production.

The first wastewater treatment plant was built only at the end of the 1980s, and it was only from the 1990s onward that the lagoon’s significant natural value was formally recognized at both the local level (two regional nature reserves) and the European level (Special Area of Conservation for the protection of habitats and significant animal and plant species, Special Protection Area for the conservation of wild bird species and their habitats, Natura 2000 network).

Meanwhile, industrial pollution of the lagoon continued largely unchecked, and the main protest initiatives—sometimes leading to legal action—were primarily driven by grassroots efforts. While the actions of citizens, committees, individual municipal administrations, and environmental associations are of great historical and ethnographic interest, their non-systematic nature makes it difficult to reconstruct events clearly.

The project therefore aimed to identify, collect, and systematize documents that bear witness to the environmental battles fought in defense of the lagoon, and to present a synthesized account of the various events.

Research contents