From Liguria to Friuli-Venice Giulia, writer Elisa Cozzarini explored 50 Alpine torrents on foot. Describing their state of health in the book Radici liquide.
"How many kilometres did I cover? A lot — I confess I didn't keep count. But I can send you the Google map where I marked every stop." Elisa Cozzarini smiles as she explains what drove her, over the past year, to explore some fifty torrents scattered the length of the Alpine arc. "The map helped me keep track of the places I visited, the people I met and their stories. But not the number of steps. Those aren't the protagonists of the journey." The book Radici Liquide, published by the Friulian writer with Nuova dimensione, is a genuine journey-cum-investigation along the last Alpine torrents. Starting from the Lys in the Aosta Valley and reaching the Alberone in Friulian Slavia, then back again to the rio Carne and the rio Gordale in Liguria.
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"My interest in torrents goes back to 2011, when in the Belluno area I came into contact with the Acqua bene comune movement," Cozzarini recalls. "Here, the tragedy of the Vajont is deeply imprinted on collective memory. So, even then, their commitment went beyond the referendum, extending to the protection of the area's watercourses." A year later, the writer marched with the committee to protest against the construction of a mini hydroelectric plant on the Mis, one of the last still-natural torrents in Veneto.
The episode is decisive in the genesis of the book. Far from the spotlight of tourist destinations such as Cortina or Falcade, Italy's mountains have been losing population for decades. "I was struck by it: the fate of a torrent had drawn more than two thousand people to a remote Dolomite valley, united in demanding respect for the Water Framework Directive," Cozzarini continues. The assault of mini hydroelectric schemes on the last natural torrents is not confined to Veneto. It affects the entire Alpine arc, a large part of the Apennines, and even Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia. At the end of 2016 the so-called centraline — installations below one megawatt of installed rated capacity — numbered 2,743, and almost two thousand more were under assessment. Their output represents around 6 per cent of the total from hydropower, equal to a few thousandths of national energy demand. In exchange, this negligible electricity production brings kilometres of pipelines, a myriad of barriers, new roads and concrete structures to places of extraordinary natural value. Yet it is made profitable by disproportionate incentives that have triggered a veritable blue-gold rush. Applications for authorisation of centraline push ever higher in altitude, in search of the smallest trickles of water to harness.
"The bodies of water considered interesting for hydroelectric purposes were already diverted in the last century. Today only high-altitude torrents remain — of extremely high ecological value and with flows so modest and irregular that any new installations would stand idle, or at any rate poorly productive, for long periods," reflects Cozzarini. In recent years awareness has spread the length of the Alpine arc, accompanied by the emergence of a growing number of local associations and committees, within which the experiences and accounts of people of all ages and backgrounds intertwine. "The mountains are the last place left where contact with water is direct. Very often the first to mobilise are people from the plains who escape the cities in summer or at weekends to immerse themselves in nature," the writer explains.
Emblematic is the story of the then-fourteen-year-old Aran Cosentino, a student at an arts secondary school, who was the first to report the existence of a centralina project on the Alberone torrent. Having grown up in the small municipality of Savogna, on the border with Slovenia, where his parents had moved to escape the urbanisation of Udine, in 2016 Aran discovered the project while browsing the internet. The Facebook group he created to defend the torrent grew rapidly, to the point that newspapers — first local, then national — began to cover the story. With passion and determination, the boy launched a petition, closed symbolically at 390 signatures, matching the number of inhabitants of Savogna. In May 2017 the company withdrew its application, and two months later Aran received from Legambiente the green flag of the Carovana delle Alpi, becoming the youngest environmentalist to receive this recognition. The battle is not over, however: some months ago the same company resubmitted its application, albeit with a few minor changes.
Torrent by torrent, the book makes no claim to being a sociological investigation of the people afflicted by that "mad attachment to the mountains and their liquid element" that Cozzarini calls hydrophilia. Quite the contrary: it is a travel diary in which encounters with people mingle with the traditions and legends of the places traversed. Taking us by the hand to discover places and events that rarely make it beyond the local news, yet prove exceptionally familiar in their everyday quality.
"From this experience I understood that the bond with water is universal, capable of overcoming barriers such as political leanings and religion. But at the same time it has an intimate dimension that each person experiences in their own way. The legends surrounding the torrents bear this out: similar to one another, yet different," Cozzarini concludes. In an era dominated by unchecked urbanisation and the trivialisation of landscapes, the protection of the last unspoilt torrents takes on a profound connotation that speaks of tradition, dialects and folk wisdom. Leading us to rediscover our roots. Liquid ones, at that.