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The binding judgement from the Strasbourg-based court confirmed
that increased rates of cancer and groundwater pollution had
been recorded in the area of 90 municipalities known as the
Tierra dei Fuoci, or Land of Fires, where some 2.9 million
people live.
The court found that Italian authorities had known about the
pollution problem, blamed on mafia clans called Camorra that
control waste disposal, since 1988 but failed to address it and
had not done what was necessary to protect residents' lives.
Residents have long complained about adverse health effects from
the dumping, which poisoned underground wells used to irrigate
the farmland that provides vegetables for much of Italy’s center
and south. Over the years, police have sequestered dozens of
fields because their irrigation wells contained high levels of
lead, arsenic and the industrial solvent tetrachloride.
Authorities say the contamination is due to the Camorra’s
multibillion-dollar racket of disposing toxic waste, mainly from
industries in Italy’s wealthy north that ask no questions about
where the garbage goes as long as it’s taken off their hands —
for a fraction of the cost of legal disposal. Camorra turncoats
have revealed how the racket works, directing police to specific
sites where toxic garbage was dumped.
Forty-one people who live in Caserta or Naples provinces and
five local organizations brought the case to the European Court
of Human Rights.
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