Italy has warned of an ecological disaster as they battle to contain an oil spill that reached the Po river. Milan regional officials said the cause was almost certainly sabotage at a former refinery turned oil depot on the tributary Lambro river. While no arrests have been made, Italian news reports have noted that the depot owner had laid off several workers in recent months.
There have been varying accounts of the amount of oil released. Officials said they now believed 2.5 million litres had poured out, but environmental groups put the quantity at 600,000 litres. The WWF wildlife charity said several water and bird species were at risk from the spill, with fish, wild ducks and herons the most in danger. Several oil-covered ducks have already been rescued from the river and taken for treatment at a regional animal shelter.
However, even after the spill is cleaned up the impact will last. Environmentalists have commented that the Po river valley is the most important agricultural region in Italy, and the river is used extensively for irrigation. The spill began at the depot near Monza and spread south overnight down the Lambro to Piacenza and Cremona, despite concerted efforts to contain it. By the next day it had reached the Po, which crosses the country from Piedmont in the west, across Turin and Ferrara, before emptying in the Adriatic.
Damiano di Simine, regional president of the Legambiente environmental group commented that "the scale of this is dramatic." He said his organisation, as well as the regional government, had asked that a state of emergency be declared to release federal funds to help contain it. Lombard regional president, Roberto Formigoni said those responsible would be prosecuted and punished severely for the ecological disaster. "Some criminal decided to intervene in a harmful and cowardly way, putting at risk an asset that belongs to all of us."
