Success Story: Parma

First of all, the application of the AMIIGA project, co-financed by Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE, has led us to identify a new situation of contamination of the shallow aquifer around the Arlecchino kindergarden. A logical, necessary and adopted consequence is the start of a technical-bureaucratic process that will lead to manage the pollution phenomenon: a study will be elaborated, defined and codified by the current legislation as Risk Analysis, which will define whether the level of contamination present it is acceptable, that is without any risk on the part of the next human targets, or if it will be necessary to carry out the appropriate reclamation operations. The implementation of the knowledge of the territory, both of the peculiarities and of the possible problems, is undoubtedly a success for the authorities that manage the environment.

A second successful action was the development of the groundwater monitoring network within the urbanized area of Parma. Thanks to European funding, no. 7 new piezometers that allowed and will allow to control the quality of the groundwater environment in the area of the Oltretorrente. These infrastructures (fenestrated pipes driven into the ground to depths useful for intercepting the aquifer) could also be used for general clean-up operations should the need arise.

Another positive aspect was to create and develop the awareness, the information and the knowledge on the existence and the real applicability of new investigation methodologies, of remediation of aquifers for the public authorities, stakeholders, professionals, researchers and Universities. In other words, an activity of experimentation and dissemination of operational activities was carried out that the actors of the territory find it difficult to know, to experiment and about what they rarely know the real potential in terms of results.

To sum up, the successful development of the AMIIGA project involved:

• the identification of a new contamination that will be managed in the best way in order to eliminate the state of potential danger;
• the transfer to the territorial actors new technical and knowledge for the management and solution of groundwater contamination;
• the creation and implementation of tools/infrastructure to monitor the quality status of the environment (groundwater).