Posted on 10/31/2018 6:54:57 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Since that time, the project—one of the world’s most complex, large-scale civil engineering projects ever attempted—has been plagued by fraud. In 2014, Venice’s then-mayor Giorgio Orsoni, along with 30 others, was arrested for charges including corruption, illicit party financing, and tax fraud totaling $6.8 billion. Orsoni was accused of taking roughly $635,000 (€560,000) in illicit campaign financing from the consortium behind the flood barrier. Orsoni resigned and received a four-month suspended sentence. He was also required to pay a $17,000 (€15,000) fine, according to the Telegraph.
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
Acqua Alta.
Happens at least once a year when the winds blow up from the south around full or new moon.
Venetians plan for it. It happens.
Venice has been sinking since the first day it was built, not only because of plate tectonics but also because of compaction of the soil in the lagoon floor. Every building in Venice stands on wooden pilings driven deep into the soil. The water itself makes the pilings virtually impervious to rot and the mud on the lagoon floor even moreso. Some of the buildings have been on the same pilings for more than a thousand years.
But all those pilings have increased the loading on a base of soil that sat for millennia only having to bear its own weight. The famous Rialto bridge alone requires 6000 pilings at either end to support the bridge's massive weight (the current bridge is made from marble), all its weight coming to bear on the relatively small patch formed by the pilings. The load bearing that the construction of the city subjected the soil to caused (and continues to cause) it to be compacted, so the lagoon beneath the city has gotten deeper very slowly over time.
Venice has sunk nine inches in the past century, and sea level has increased only a fraction of that (if at all). And all of that sinking is due to choices the Venetians have made, not to man-made global hooey.
Is it my dirty mind or do these look like something else?
Venice floods every year. What’s the big deal? And corruption involving a massive Italian public works project?! Shocking!
The Arno is flooding too?
I am not sure what you are driving at, but I lead a sheltered life.
Those "stupid" Venetians have been incredibly successful, over the centuries, operating from their protected position. That little city-state ruled the entire Adriatic region.
NO! I didn’t mean the Venetians were stupid! I meant the people who said Venice is flooding because of global warming!!!
The Mediterranean is melting!!! Quick, expand government while there’s still time.
Water levels itself. If Venice is going under, one would see it in every other coastal city.
Venice is built on silt. It has gone down 9” in the last century. Plus it is in a locale that floods frequently.
If Venice is flooding because global warming is melting the ice caps and raising sea levels, shouldn’t we see flooding in other coastal cities? If tbat were true then Al Gore better roll up the carpets in his seaside California mansion
Most of the Netherlands (hence the name) is well below sea level. Yet they manage not to be constantly flooded. Others can learn to cope as well...
Sadly, some don't have the smarts, and will consequently perish. Too bad, so sad, bye bye... no reason for the rest of us to get all flustered about it. Oh, wait, liberals...
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