CONCLUSIONES DEL IMPACTO AMBIENTAL

4.2.1. Research context: Key events and problems (2012-2016)

In May 2012, in occasion of the second anniversary of the earthquake in Emilia- Romagna, Action Aid, one of the organizations promoting the OpenRicostruzione Project, issued a report describing the activities carried out in the first two years of reconstruction (Action Aid 2014). In the same month, the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council presented another report titled “Two years after the earthquake - the story of what we have done and

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what we are doing” (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2014a). Both of these reports claimed that the reconstruction process in Emilia-Romagna was a collaborative process in that its priorities were not set by a central authority but were established in collaboration with local governments and actors (Action Aid 2014; Regione Emilia-Romagna 2014a). Indeed, although legislative power remained in the Special Commissioner’s hands, the content of the decrees was negotiated with the single municipalities, which could present doubts and concerns. Moreover, the final version of the decree left room for flexibility in its application so that the mayors could better apply it to the specific situation and problems in their own municipalities (Mayor of Bomporto, personal communication). On the one hand, this offered the flexibility necessary to manage a complex reconstruction process in such widespread area. On the other, it opened the space for complaints from the local population due to the very different applications of a single decree.

From June 2012 to May 2014, in order to manage the reconstruction process, 290 decrees and one regional law (n.16/2012) were issued by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council (Regione Emilia-Romagna, 2014a,b). Despite this, the whole process was slow due to the lack of a clear legislative framework capable of providing direction. Indeed, in March 2012, two months before the earthquakes, the national Government announced the re-organisation of the Civil Protection system by means of decree no. 59/2012. The decree was turned into a law (no. 100/2012) in July 2012 incorporating several amendments that were intended to respond to the evolving emergency situation in Emilia-Romagna. While the previous legislative framework tasked the civil protection authorities with the management of all the emergency phases, the new law established that the public administration had to deal with the mitigation and recovery phases (Action Aid 2014). Public administrators in Emilia-Romagna found

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themselves defining a system of laws and decrees in time of crisis (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2014b; Action Aid 2014). In addition, in order to meet the specific needs of the municipalities, the decrees went through several re-adjustments, which made the whole legal system of reference variable (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2015). Both the reports mentioned above and personal communication by key decision makers gathered during the field trip by the author confirmed that the actual reconstruction started in the first half of 2013 when the subsidy that could be claimed for private reconstruction was increased from 80% to 100% of the costs of rebuilding.

The interventions for the reconstruction have focussed on several areas: (a) reconstruction of schools; (b) public works and support to local businesses and companies, and (c) actions in favour of families and social support. With regards to schools, the priority was to make the school system functional by September 2012, the beginning of the academic year. With this goal, where severely damaged, the schools were relocated to new or existing undamaged buildings. The same thing happened for the municipal offices. In Cavezzo, for example, the municipal offices were moved and shared the spaces with the local school, whereas in Mirandola new buildings were created for both the school and the municipal offices (personal investigation) as shown in Figure 4.3. According to the original plan, these new buildings will be dismantled once the original buildings have been repaired.

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Figure 4.3. The new building of the city hall in Mirandola. Besides to it, a new school for

the town has been built. Source: Comune di Mirandola website

With regard to public works, as of 2014, 1,540 interventions had been carried out, including 541 works on public assets and 999 on cultural assets. In 2014, these works were still at a very early stage due to delays in allocating resources and to the floods that struck the region in the first months of the year (Action Aid 2014). A report released in 2015 by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council indicated that the reconstruction was proceeding well for both the residential and commercial buildings as well as for the revitalisation of the economic sector (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2015). However local and national newspapers commented that only 60% of the buildings were reconstructed and that many other critical situations (such as people who were still living in temporary shelters) were still unresolved (Il Fatto Quotidiano 2015). In April 2014 a series of new decrees was issued to support the revitalisation of the historic centres that had been severely damaged by the earthquake (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2014a). Figure 4.4 shows the works undertaken on historical and cultural assets in Mirandola town centre.

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Figure 4.4. Historical centre of Mirandola. Photo taken during the field trip in April 2014.

On the private sector side, the regeneration of the local companies and businesses has been one of the priorities. Despite the satisfactory amount of funds allocated for the reconstruction, and several tax breaks and benefits for the local businesses (Provincia Bologna 2012), there were severe delays in the distribution of these funds to the industries in need (Gazzetta di Mantova 2015). In many cases, local industries, which already experienced difficulties due to the financial crisis, had to pay in advance for materials and repair works. Some local actors complained about a different level of bureaucracy in the public and private works. In their opinion, while private citizens had to manage a plethora of administrative procedures, the allocation of funds to repair public facilities was much easier (SulPanaro 2014).

A good practice to be mentioned is that local businesses and shops, when located in damaged historic town centres, received funds to relocate temporarily into nearby shopping malls. Once the buildings were secured and the roads re-opened, other funds were offered to allow them to return

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to their previous locations (Mirandola Town Council Secretary, personal communication). By doing so, it was possible to prevent the complete abandonment of the historic town centres. In other cases, innovative solutions for local businesses and shops were found. A notable example is the shopping centre created in Cavezzo (the most affected town) and named “Cavezzo 5.9” by the magnitude of the earthquake. The shopping centre was entirely constructed out of shipping containers, which had previously been used for other purposes (Figure 4.5). Interestingly a similar solution was used to revitalise the city centre in Christchurch (New Zealand) after that two major earthquakes devastated the central business district in September 2010 and February 2011. The 'Re:Start Mall' in Christchurch offers a wide range of shops housed in shipping containers. The best practices and shortcomings of the reconstruction process in Christchurch will be discussed extensively in Chapter 5.

Figure 4.5. The shopping centre “ Cavezzo 5.9” constructed using containers. At the end of 2016, the containers have been dismantled and donated to the population affected by the

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With regards to actions in favour of the families and to social support, the Italian Government offered several options to accommodate affected people. Most people decided to accept the funds allocated to help them find temporary accommodation, the so-called Contributi di autonoma sistemazione (CAS). Others were rehoused in rented accommodation or in temporary containers (MAP, moduli abitativi provvisori). Regarding this last point, the Government tried to minimise the use of temporary containers (figure 4.6) in order to prevent people spending years in such accommodation (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2014a).

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Figure 4.6. Containers in Mirandola. Photo taken during the field trip in April 2014

Since the very early stages, people affected could request to be reimbursed up to 80% of the total cost of repair works. In February 2013, a new decree increased the potential refund to 100% of costs (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2014b). One of the main complaints concerning the allocation of funds to private citizens was that those who had received the refund were then asked partially to repay it through an increase in their taxes.

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One of the key-events in the Emilia-Romagna reconstruction was the scandal of the so-called "Ichese report" (Rapporto Ichese). During the last months of 2013, the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council requested to a committee of experts to gauge whether fracking activities, in particular in the areas of Cavone and Casaglia in Modena Province, could have triggered the earthquakes in 2012. This topic is greatly discussed among the scientific community but no certain correlation has been found (Walsh 2014). The study concluded that a correlation between the 2012 earthquake and the fracking activities could not be ruled out. The Emilia- Romagna authorities received the report at the beginning of 2014 but they kept it secret until the results were published by the journal “Science” in April 2014 (Cartlidge 2014). One month later, the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council was forced to acknowledge that they were aware of the report’s results and to make them public on their own website (Giliberto 2014). The citizens’ reaction to this scandal has been focused on (a) asking about the motivations for keeping a document of such great interest secret from the public; and (b) asking for the interruption of the fracking activities in Emilia- Romagna Region. The scandal triggered a series of press releases by regional and local authorities to explain and clarify the results of the study and to re-assure the population about the lack of correlation between the two events.

4.2.2. Research context: Key actors in the reconstruction between authorities and citizens

On the administrative side, Italy is divided into 20 regions, 109 provinces and 8,104 municipalities. Provinces are administrative sub-divisions of regions. The Parliament has the legislative power to issue laws, which require the approval of both the Houses of Representatives before being enacted. In case of an emergency, the Government can temporarily issue

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a law decree in lieu of a law provided that the decree is turned into a law with 60 days.

The reorganisation of the Italian Civil Protection system was announced in March 2012. This meant that the management of disaster mitigation and recovery activities was transferred from the National Civil Protection department to regional and local authorities. However, at the moment of the earthquakes in May 2012, the law had not been implemented yet. For this reason, on 6 June 2012, the Government issued Decree no. 74 to set emergency institutional arrangements for the management of the recovery process In Emilia-Romagna. On this basis, the Presidents of the Regions affected by the earthquake in 2012 became Special Commissioners for the Reconstruction (Regione Emilia-Romagna 2014b) and the mayors were sub-commissioners. The decree was turned into a law (no. 100/2012) in July 2012. From August 2012 the Regional Council took charge of the management of the whole reconstruction process and the National Department of Civil Protection ended its activities in the region. Nonetheless, civil protection activities were still undertaken by regional, provincial and municipal authorities.

As far as the reconstruction in Emilia-Romagna is concerned, legislative power remained mainly at regional, provincial and municipal levels. During the course of two years (2012-2014), the Special Commissioner issued several directives and decrees in order to manage the reconstruction process. At the local level, municipal offices managed different aspects of the reconstruction (e.g. social support, urban planning and the school system). Mayors coordinated the recovery activities and negotiated the content of the decrees with the regional level, providing inputs and insights into needs and critical situations at the local level. Likewise, the provinces provided a further level of coordination of reconstruction activities. Besides government offices, other agencies such as the local fire services and

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police stations offered their support, especially in the first stages of the reconstruction in order to gauge the amount of damage and the safety of the buildings. In August 2012, a new monitoring organization, called GIRER (Gruppo Interforze per la Ricostruzione in Emilia-Romagna) was established at the headquarters of the Criminal Police with the aim of creating a “white list” of companies contracted for the reconstruction and avoiding the penetration of organised crime into the reconstruction process (Ministero dell’Interno 2012). All the orders and decrees issued can be consulted on the section of the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council dedicated to the reconstruction (http://www.regione.emilia- romagna.it/terremoto).

On the citizens’ side, a large number of committees and citizens’ associations were created both at the local and cross-regional levels. These committees took forward a project of the reconstruction then named “Dal basso alla Bassa”, whose main goal was to prevent a top-down control of the reconstruction process and to promote transparency and community engagement (Hajek 2013). Indeed the term Bassa indicates the area affected by the earthquake (La bassa bolognese e modenese - i.e., the floodplain) while the term basso (which in Italian means “bottom”) was meant to indicate a project created by and for the population (i.e. "bottom- up" - Hajek, 2013). This scenario is consistent with the description by Quarantelli (1985) and Stallings and Quarantelli (1985) of the emergent groups during disaster recovery. These groups emerge as a result of the perception that the authorities are not addressing a pressing need. Consequently they often have a combative nature and refuse to identify with political parties (Stallings and Quarantelli 1985). However, in a few cases these organisations end up engaging openly in political activities. As an example, Sisma.12 (http://sismapuntododici.blogspot.co.uk) has been one of the most politically active committees in the Emilian reconstruction

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landscape. It led several civic struggles to inform people, within and outside the Emilia-Romagna region, about the difficulties that people have encountered during the reconstruction. Besides organisations that tackle general issues, other groups have had a more local nature and have focused their activities in specific towns or areas and on specific problems (Stallings and Quarantelli 1985). “Cinquepuntonovi” and “Comitato Elementari Concordia sulla Secchia” can be included in this category. Finally, the advent and rapid advancement of new communication technologies have brought to the prominence other committees that exist merely as on-line groups for information sharing on the reconstruction. “Magnitudo 5.9”, “Finale Emilia Terremotata Protesta” and “Rovereto Terremoto” are all examples of the latter. Overall the reconstruction process in Emilia-Romagna has been characterised by the widespread creation of groups of citizens, which have served as a counterpart (and sometimes as an opponent) to the dialogue with local and regional authorities. Table 4.1 lists some community-based groups involved in the earthquake recovery in Emilia-Romagna, which were used for the distribution of the questionnaire.

4.2.3. Research context: monitoring and participatory activities during the reconstruction phase

The activation of monitoring and participatory activities is a paramount means of making post-disaster reconstruction more transparent and free of criminal influences. During post-disaster reconstruction in Emilia, several of these activities were put in place. To start with, there was the OpenRicostruzione Project, initiated by the collaboration between Emilia- Romagna Regional Council, ANCI (the Association of Italian Municipalities) and other associations that work on civic participation (e.g. ActionAid and

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OpenPolis). This project includes a web portal (http://www.openricostruzione.it), which provides citizens with relevant information on the reconstruction process and allows them to follow the development of projects and track the use of donations.

In addition, the project aims to give citizens the skills and tools to participate actively in the reconstruction. For this reason, ActionAid organized a series of workshops on data journalism in order to train citizens to monitor reconstruction by analysing data and maps on the Web and taking pictures of the recovery works (Shoot4Emilia). The blog page on the web portal aims to chronicle these participatory initiatives. Also, the Emilia-Romagna Regional Council launched a new website (http://www.donazionisisma.it) which provides an overview of the amount of donations received and of the projects funded.

In January 2014 the “Observatory on the Reconstruction” was established with the intention of helping prevent criminal influences. The Observatory was coordinated by “Libera”, an association active in countering criminal organizations (Associazione “Libera” 2014). The key point of this initiative was the engagement of a wide range of stakeholders from citizens' associations to local, regional and national authorities. Additionally, as noted above, a “white list” of the companies hired to execute the reconstruction works was established. The white list guaranteed that the companies contracted were not related in any way to criminal organizations. Despite all these efforts, in 2015 it became evident that some local professionals and companies involved in the reconstruction had collaborated with criminal organisations, notably with the mafia from Calabria (called “‘Ndrangheta”). The investigation, named “Aemilia”, resulted in many professionals being jailed and in the initiation of a long trial (La Repubblica 2015).

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Table 4.1. Some community-based and on-line groups involved in earthquake recovery

activities in Emilia-Romagna

Name Scope

Just on cyber space?

Area Facebook Twitter

Comitato SismaPuntoDodici A place to share ideas, projects and information on the reconstruction No Troughout the affected area Sisma.12 – Comitato Ricostruire la Bassa dal Basso @SISMA_21 CinquePuntoNovi Cultural association active in many recovery activities No Novi di Modena (MO) Cinque Punto Novi @CinquepuntoNovi Una scuola per Mirandola Collecting funds to rebuild and repair schools damaged by the earthquake No Mirandola (MO) Una Scuola Per @1ScuolaXMiran Magnitudo 5.9 Collecting voices and opinions from the

affected area Yes Mirabello (FE) - Troughout the affected area Magnitudo 5.9 – Mirabello 2012 @Magnitudo59 Ricostruiamo Creva Group to propose reconstruction initiatives Yes Crevalcore (BO) Ricostruiamo Creva - Comitato Elementari Concordia sulla Secchia Collecting funds for the school in Concordia sulla Secchia No Concordia sulla Secchia (MO) Comitato Elementari Concordia Secchia -

Several other initiatives are also worth mentioning. The initiatives related to the reconstruction were generally aimed at making this process more participative by asking the residents how they wanted cultural and public

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assets or entire neighbourhoods to be rebuilt. The methodologies used to glean citizens’ opinions included semi-structured interviews, focus groups and questionnaires. Table 4.2 summarises the participatory activities carried out after the earthquakes in Emilia-Romagna.

Table 4.2: Participatory initiatives carried out in Emilia-Romagna after the earthquakes

NAME MUNICIPALITY AIMS WEBSITE

Più sanFelice San Felice sul Panaro Establish good practices and critical situations http://terremotosanfelice.org Immagina Mirandola Mirandola Participatory

urban planning http://www.immaginamirandola.it

Ricostruire

Finale Finale Emilia

Sharing proposals on reconstruction

Phase: the Emilia-Romagna Earthquake Case Study Fatti il centro tuo! Novi di Modena Community engagement in the reconstruction projects http://www.comune.novi.mo.it/index.php /fatti-il-centro-tuo 1 2 3 Scuola! Camposanto Participatory projects for the reconstruction of

the schools

http://www.comune.camposanto.mo.it

Less is More Sant’Agostino

Sharing ideas on how to revitalize the city

centre

http://www.comune.santagostino.fe.it/

Spazio ai

Giovani Cento

Participatory projects for the reconstruction of

meeting points for young people

http://www.comune.cento.fe. lLCommercio al centro. Nonantola