Construction of the European Space Agency's supertelescope on Mount Mufara in Sicily has been halted, at least for now. The structure, which will cost a total of 12 million euros, is just the first piece of a much larger puzzle, namely the “planetary defence system” that ESA is working on and which will serve to protect the Earth from asteroids, comets and other impacts. with “waste” from space. The other telescopes in the network are to be built in Matera, Basilicata, but also in Australia, Argentina and Mexico. But why did the work in Sicily suffer a setback? Because the one that intervened quickly was the Regional Administrative Court of Sicily, which, by decree, ordered the work to be stopped, accepting the request of some environmental associations and requesting the acquisition of a series of documents and authorisations.
The government's ad hoc decree
The ESA supertelescope is to be built on top of Mount Mufara, in the Madonie mountains, at the highest point and with the least possible light pollution. And this is precisely where the problem arises. This area is in fact a completely protected area, which means that until recently it was not possible to build anything. This constraint was removed by the Meloni government with the Asset decree, which considers all astronomical observatories funded by the European Space Agency as “of strategic importance”. It thus allows their construction without any environmental constraints.
Environmental protests
Despite protests from Legambiente, WWF, Italia Nostra and Cai, work has begun. The contract for the construction of the supertelescope is the Venetian group Eie, which specializes in building astronomical observatories around the world. The ceremony to lay the foundation stone was scheduled for today, Friday, September 6, but the decree of the Sicilian Regional Administrative Court forced the plans to change, justifying the objections raised by environmentalists. “The message is unequivocal: environmental constraints do not matter. They exist, but we “neutralize” them when we want,” reports a Republic Ferdinando Mazzarella, a law professor at the University of Palermo, said the government's Asset decree also risks being unconstitutional.
TAR decision awaited
Gianpietro Marchioni, president of the Eie Group, says he is working to submit all the documents requested to the regional court and assures that the impact on the territory will be minimal. “There will be no human presence, the system is automatic and you will only go up for the six-monthly maintenance,” explains the head of the Venetian company. The TAR hearing is set for September 24, when the judges should announce their final decision. If the environmental associations win, the project could suffer a major setback and force the ESA to opt for the alternative destination to Sicily, already in the approval phase, namely the Canary Islands.
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