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Venice - Porto Marghera

We are working on the remediaion of the historical industrial site to regenerate and give new life to the area.

The remediation of a historical industrial site

The industrial area of Porto Marghera, one of Europe’s largest, was established between 1917 and 1921 with the remediation of lagoon soils and the development of a commercial port, railways, navigable artificial canals and roads. At the end of 1928 there were over 50 plants, most of which operating within the steel, chemical, engineering, shipbuilding, oil and electricity sectors. Eni's presence in Porto Marghera has crossed several historical eras with the operations of Agip, Agip Petroli and Enichem and their joint ventures, including the one between ICI and Enichem, which led to the establishment of EVC (later Ineos Vinyls Italia and Vinyls Italia), and the one between Montedison and Enichem which, in 1989, led to the founding of Enimont. In 1991, after Enimont went bankrupt, Enichem became the owner of Montedison’s production assets and, in 2008, under the name of Syndial (today Eni Rewind), terminated all its activities when the Vinyls Italia plants were shut down. Today, Eni Rewind owns a total of approximately 210 hectares, 170 of which lie in the New Petrochemical and 40 in the Old Petrochemical areas. Eni’s environmental company is also in charge of remediation interventions in the areas passed on to Versalis. Since 2000, Porto Marghera has been a Site of National Priority, according to Italian Law 426/1998, for its high environmental risk and the need for remediation and safety measures

Our activities in Porto Marghera

The first environmental operations on the Porto Marghera site date back to the Nineties, between 1995 and 1999, with the safety interventions on the decommissioned plants and on the old landfills, the start of the first surveys on the matrices and the installation of a first network of piezometers to monitor the groundwater. In 2005, the results of the characterisations led to the submission of the final remediation project inclusive of safety measures for the areas belonging to Eni Rewind and the other jointly-owned companies, divided into sub-projects for the Old and New Petrochemical macro-areas, Ex AM8, island 46, Malcontenta C, Basin SR14 and the former Agriculture area sedimentation tank. All the projects have been approved and the planned activities are either ongoing or certified with completed remediation. As regards the groundwater, the final remediation project comprises a water pumping system in the New and Old Petrochemical areas that conveys the drained waters to the treatment plant and then on to the consortium’s physico-chemical and biological water treatment plant. This drainage system is complementary to the confinement interventions led by the Magistrato delle Acque in Venice (physical and hydraulic barrier). Eni Rewind is also committed to complete the demolition of the abandoned plants and involved in the post-operam monitoring of the areas that have already undergone remediation or safety measures interventions and certified.