Castrovillari (Cosenza), execution of the precautionary measure order of the temporary ban on the exercise of personal activity against an engineer

In the morning, the Carabinieri of the Ecological Operations Unit of Catanzaro, supported by the military of the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri of Cosenza, they executed the personal precautionary measure order with which the GIP at the Court of Castrovillari (Cosenza), at the request of the Public Prosecutor's Office, after having ordered, on 29 October, the seizure of the landfill for non-hazardous special waste at Scala Coeli for the crime of environmental disaster (art. 452 – quater cp), applied the precautionary measure of temporary ban from practicing the professional activity of engineer, for a period of twelve months, against the Director of Works relating to the construction of the second basin of the landfill, who is provisionally accused of complicity in the crime of environmental disaster; with the same provision, the GIP applied the precautionary measure of suspension from the exercise of public office against an ARPA.CAL official in relation to the provisional charge of refusal to perform official duties (art. 328, paragraph 1, cp).

In particular, in terms of the seriousness of the evidence and subject to subsequent checks, it was believed that the Director of Works would have competed with other subjects (the temporary administrator of the company owning the landfill, the two administrators of the company carrying out the works relating to the plant, the administrator of the company that carried out the waterproofing of the basin), in the crime of environmental disaster, agreeing with them to install a pipe, subsequently buried, with a diameter of 60 cm and a length of more than 60 m, not foreseen in the project nor authorised by the Calabria Region, placed in the lower part of the basin and which would have allowed the leachate to flow outside the artificial embankment, also omitting to report it to the relevant bodies; furthermore, he would have certified, with a specific report, the correct execution of the works in question, a circumstance which would not correspond to the truth.

In relation to the position of the ARPA official. CAL, it was also considered, equally at the level of circumstantial gravity and subject to subsequent checks, that the latter, in the exercise of his functions, despite having ascertained, following an inspection carried out on 02.01.2023, the presence of approximately 40 cm of leachate on the bottom of the second basin, would have failed to draw up a complete inspection report containing, in particular, the confirmation of the violation of the AIADDG provision no. 14284 of 20.11.2019, in the part in which it requires the owner of the landfill to completely remove the leachate present above the waterproofing system; he would also have failed to make the consequent communications to the competent administrative and judicial authorities, to which he was required by law.