Ciampino, everyone with their ‘antennas straight’: what happened to the plan?

The Ciampino committee denounces the inaction of the institutions

ROME – In Ciampino the antenna plan ‘doesn’t need to be done’: a project lies in a drawer, citizens know little or nothing about it and while the administration evaluates what to do, the No Antennas committee dissolved in April.

But let’s take a step back. The mandate to develop a plan had been entrusted by the previous right-wing council to the Leganet company which had developed it for the three-year period 2024-2026.

Then between the commissionership and the new council of mayor Colella everything stopped. Why?

Was something wrong with that plan?

The citizens of the Committee denounce the lack of involvement of the population, as instead happened in Castel Gandolfo or Cerveteri with excellent results. So much so that the spontaneous citizens’ Committee ‘No antennas’ wrote in April: “The The experience of the No Antenna Ciampino Committee teaches that participation is welcome only if it concerns areas where there are no economic interests involved because on those tables, if citizens participated, those who administer would be forced to demonstrate which side they are on”.

There are many concerns about antennas and public health: who really measures emissions? The biggest obstacle for the Municipalities is that if it is true that they have the power to issue regulations (law 36 of 2001), it is also true that the network is now equated with a primary infrastructure as desired by the Conte government, that the network he even wanted to put it in the Constitution. The Municipalities, essentially, cannot say no.

“Electromagnetic fields are among the biggest health problems in Castelli – Riccardo Ricci, manager of the Praeet company (Analytical Reorganization Plan for Territorial Electromagnetic Emissions Ethical Project for the protection of health and the environment) explains to Dire – Montecavo has accumulated 300 antennas over the years of radio and TV.

Law 36 of 2001 gives Municipalities the opportunity to draw up an antenna plan: regulations and tables that allow the risks of electromagnetic fields to be minimised. The smart ones stood up – he reports – and said ‘let’s put more antennas to minimize. It is the famous – cunning (ed) – of densification, pushed by companies sponsored by the managers, and months ago there was also a doubling of emissions from 6 to 15 volt meters. This government has doubled down.”

Of course “in Europe the limit is 61 volt metre, but what matters – he underlines – is to have it as low as possible”.

According to Ricci, the biggest risk of the regulation made by Leganet for Ciampino would lie in the company’s “conflict of interest”, because “they advertise on the site the collaboration with A2F, the company that installs the antennas. Who would care to downplay it?”.

“The guys from the Ciampino Committee – continues Ricci – felt disheartened, they were never listened to”. As for the responsibilities of local institutions, according to Ricci “most mayors know nothing about it, it is councilors and heads of technical offices who play ‘dirty'”.

But a policy in which citizens are involved can be done: “I worked in Albano in 2001 with the centre-right council: there was a problem in Santa Palomba with an antenna turned on in 2002 and they wanted another one in Albano, the pole was already up. We worked with citizens and committees. Our company effectively becomes an ethical shield. An antenna stopped in Marino and another in Monteporzio. Then four years ago in Albano a tender was issued, the cost was reduced and the company with the lowest cost won.”

The municipal purse, on the other hand, is always empty, so: should we repair the hole or do the antenna plan? This is the joke to which the mayor of Cerveteri, Elena Maria Gubetti, responded with a clear choice. “We have built a participatory path that led us to the drafting of the plan and the creation of the antenna plan in which the citizens’ committees for health protection are present.

The study of the antenna plan was done to respond to the 2022 regional law, but the law requires that it be participated. For example, the regional law provides for encouraging the shared use of the pylon to reduce the impact: something that the managers do not want to do; just as they prefer to pay 20 thousand euros a year to the private sector than 300 euros to the public, and have fewer controls.

To date we are denying some requests: they must go to the points foreseen in the Plan. The law says that there are sensitive places, while on emissions – admits the mayor – it is difficult to do real monitoring”.

In the meantime, everything is silent in Ciampino: the antenna plan, according to what Dire understands, is still up to the evaluation of the municipal administration compared to the previous assignment to Leganet which drew up the project. A concern for public health?

Since Leganet’s plan, the administrations have changed, there is a mayor and new managers and others can also hear, say some people close to the company, who in the meantime will have been paid for the work done?

But it is not enough not to put antennas in front of a public school out of sensitivity, we need to monitor emissions. “The studies – concludes Ricci – are leading us to the conclusion: electromagnetic fields are harmful and should be used as little as possible”.

For the health of an electrosensitive child, a judge has issued a ruling to disconnect the wifi (in Florence in 2019) and in the meantime Praeet organizes school camps in which teenagers and young people are without cell phones: “At first they go crazy, then they volunteer and they learn to be useful to society.”

Here we are even at the prevention of a digital toxicity that strongly affects the lives of young people.

“Immobility – denounced the Ciampino No antennas committee – made even more serious in light of the government decision to raise the radiation limits of electromagnetic waves from 6 to 16 V/m”.

Health is the biggest concern for the people of Ciampino, already affected by very strong sources of pollution between urban traffic, the Gra ring, planes overhead and perhaps the averted danger of car wreckers: “The precautionary principle much praised in the pandemic – adds Ricci – ben strange that it no longer applies to the antennas to be installed”. We could start again from what we read on the website of the Higher Institute of Health: “The actual extent of the health risk is not known”.