A view on the Land of Fires

This post is part of the article «Gomorrah Street View»: Merging locative media with civic media: opportunities and limitations of Streetview as a tool for monitoring and reporting environmental crimes

Smoke kills: the Land of Fires

The waste management in Campania – the region of Naples – has been under the control of an emergency commission since 1994. Despite the efforts of public authorities and the substantial investments to solve the crisis, the situation is now worse than in the past. Using a strong metaphor, writer and journalist Roberto Saviano in his best seller Gomorrah [1] coined the term «Land of Fires» to indicate a large area in Campania region wherein deliberate fires are ignited to burn the waste, predominantly hazardous, by eco-mafias. Eco-mafias are accomplished by Camorra clans, the local criminal organisations, that yearly accumulate €20.5 billions on environmental crimes (more than the income of Italian enterprises such as car-manufacturer FIAT) [2].

According to a survey of environmental monitoring agency ARPA [3], there are approximately 5200 critical sites in Campania. They are legal or illegal landfills, countryside lands, abandoned farms, parking lots and regular streets. In such sites millions of tons of waste are disposed, spilled, buried, poured, dumped and then burned, with deadly effects on the local population, environment and business. The dramatic situation in this area of Campania has serious consequences on locals that suffer from illnesses caused by dioxins, percolate and other highly toxic substances present in the land, air and water. In a 2004 article, Lancet Oncology called this area the «Triangle of Death» and exposed shocking statistics demonstrating that the death rate for liver cancer is close to 34.5% for males and to 20.8% for females, whereas the national average is 14%. Furthermore, the severe pollution is affecting the food chain as well, because residents consume food coming from the local land [4].

Here the waste has different origins and sources. Apart from the «domestic» waste, we can find tires, furniture, appliances, street-cleaning dusts, industrial process leftovers and construction materials. The waste is normally set on fire during night hours, when darkness obscures the black smoke and protects arsonists’ identity. Responsible for the fires are often roma minors or other immigrants that get minimal incomes by operating for eco-mafia clans. In the «Biùtiful Cauntri» [5], the garbage is nothing but the central element of a complex system that involves organised crime, business, health and the environment.

More info on the Land of Fires

• More pictures by La Terra dei Fuochi (gallery on Facebook group): https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=203880605181
• Videos by La Terra dei Fuochi: http://www.youtube.com/user/VideoReport24h#p/u
• Laboratorio Campano: http://www.laboratoriocampano.org
• La Terra dei Fuochi: http://www.laterradeifuochi.it
• Munnezza.info: http://munnezza.info

Investigating with Streetview the Land of Fires

Using Google Streetview, I will guide you through the most insightful sites of the Land of Fires, pointing out patterns, crime contexts and practices related to the illegal waste disposal and fire-destruction in the area (as observed through the imagery available during August 2011). The case studies are organised according to recurrent location typologies, such as:

• Highway ramps
• Countryside spots
• Wastelands
• Water basins
• Farm fields

Sites’ map: all exploration sites are at this address: http://goo.gl/Sjd8v

Approaching the area from above, several arson smokes can be spotted starting from three-quarters of the maximum zoom level. The aerial view shows the Asse Mediano highway ramp in the town of Giugliano (Naples). We can spot piles of garbage in the bottom-right corner and, in particular, an arson in the crop surrounded by the ramps. In the waste disposal business, ramps are strategical points. Trucks drive there along highways, even from distant places, with unknown loads. Once they arrive at a «safe» spot, trucks drivers pull over from the highway and dispose of their content in the proximity of the ramps.

Abandoned farmhouses are often used to hide bins containing toxic liquids and other hazardous waste. In this view, we observe a dismissed farmhouse that is few hundreds of meters away from a highway ramp.

Via Vianini is probably the most emblematic spot in the Land of Fires between those I explored through Streetview. The imagery shows a sequence of garbage piles that almost cover the entire width of the street, surrounded by crops, orchards and greenhouses.

Another interesting location to visit through Streetview is the «Taverna del Re» storing site, at the border between the provinces of Naples and Caserta. «Taverna del Re» is the largest of 18 similar sites in Campania region. It has the extension of around 185 football pitches measured altogether. The site stores over 7 millions of the so-called eco-bails (each weights up to 1 ton ) that wait since 10 years to be burned in one of the area incinerators. An eventual fire in this site would have disastrous consequences on the entire area and population.

In the town of Sant’Anastasia, we can find an improvised landfill within the protected land of the Vesuvius National Park.

In 2007, Resit landfill was set on fire destroying 700.000 tons of toxic waste after insider information on a imminent Police investigation leaked to the local Camorra clans.

In the town of Castel Volturno, we can found about 30 lakes whose origin exemplifies the ways eco-mafia clans exploit the local areas. First a cave is used to extract sand for constructions. Once the cave is out of mineral resources, it gets filled with waste. After that, bulldozers intentionally break up the water table underneath, provoking the flooding of the cave. The springing flow covers all evidences with water [6].

«Food is not growing on the supermarket shelves» [7]. Extended areas in Campania region are used for agriculture and sheep-farming. Local rural companies produce vegetables, meat, livestock and dairy products. Among these, we can found «Bio» farms that operate meters away from polluted spots. In the following evidence, a biologic farm has his main entrance next to Difrabi landfill in the town of Pianura. This is a wasteland that has been used for more than 40 years. As many environmental organisation dossiers report, Difrabi was recently took over by Camorra clans that are using it for hazardous waste dumping including painting mud, asbestos, acrylic glue, cosmetics leftovers, aluminium dust, contaminated land.

Notes