ROME - They are among the finest survivors of ancient Greek civilisation in the Mediterranean: a line of imposing Doric temples on the southern coast of Sicily which have been listed as a Unesco World Heritage site since 1997.
But now the Italian Government plans to build ahuge liquid gas terminal less than a kilometre away from the famous Agrigento site, to the fury of environmentalists.
The site is protected by environmental laws, but the effect of these has been cancelled by the simple act of stating that the heritage site does not exist, according to Carlo Vulpio, the Corriere della Sera journalist who has been spearheading the environmentalists' fight back.
Vulpio disclosed yesterday that a ruling signed into law on September 28 by the Environment Minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo, backed by the Culture Minister, Sandro Bondi, stated that the planned €500 million ($1.156 billion) plant "does not infringe on the special protected zone at a community level, inasmuch as the closest affected district is between 13 and 20km from the area of the planned development."
Thanks to this claim, the project has now obtained the all-important "environmental impact assessment" go-ahead from the ministerial commission in charge of these questions, on the grounds that it will not impact on sites of importance to the community.
"It's therefore a pity," writes Vulpio, "that at less than 1km (and not 13 or 20) from the point at which they want to realise the project, which consists of two holding tanks, each of 160,000sq m, 47m high and 72m across, plus the 40m-high flame tower, is to be found the Archaeological Park of the Valley of the Temples."
