The flood barriers known as MOSE were up for 40 continuous hours this past weekend, during which time they prevented two high tides of more than 130 cm (as well as all the rest of the normal tidal movement in and out of the lagoon). The forecast for late this afternoon initially put the high tide around 125 cm, and MOSE is only raised when the forecast is for a tide of 130 cm or greater. MOSE also requires, if recall correctly, about 3 hours to rise into it full upright position and, moreover, shipping traffic that would be entering or departing the lagoon must be notified in advance that their route will be closed. All of which explains why there was nothing to be done this afternoon when Bora winds ended up pushing the high tide to 145 cm at 4:45 pm, which was about 45 minutes before these images were taken.
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| A long exposure of 10 second smooths what in reality was the deep choppy water in Piazza San Marco while the series of video screens in the window of Museo Correr, an installation by the artist Fabrizio Plessi, appear as blank white light. |
Saw some of this online, really looked so bad. It seems to be one thing after another, with very little good news. I'd wondered if Mose was "doing its thing". It seems wrong that it should not be able to spring into action as soon as conditions suggest a bad Aqua Alta. Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteI think we've been brainwashed by Hollywood and commercial media to believe in happy endings and successful and even *miraculous* interventions, when in fact, as other cultures do understand (and have long understood), human agency in the world (at those times we are able to wield it) is rarely without complicated ramifications. At least this is what I try to remind myself. MOSE does what it can do--it is something, and it is temporary, and it is better than nothing, and therefore can appreciated for what it is. Beyond that, beyond the empty boasts of Brugnaro and publicity, all the problems remain.
DeleteAfter our cheer few weeks ago when it looked like Mose did work, it makes me mad and disappointed. 😢
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to MOSE any cheer can perhaps only be temporary and is always impinged upon by hard facts that it alone can not and will not change. Venetians have altered the lagoon for many centuries (otherwise it would have silted up with mountain run-off from the rivers long ago), but dredging deep water channels in it for shipping in the early 20th century (and since) radically changed its depth and qualities. The shipping possibilities created by these channels now factor into the local economy--to do away with them to restore the lagoon to its shallower state, filled with mud flats which would moderate acqua would cost port jobs, and no one is willing to give those up. These port jobs and the expense of keeping container ships and tankers out of the lagoon also figure into questions of when and how long to raise MOSE--probably moreso than the environmental risks of interfering with natural tidal actions for extended periods. And then there's rising sea levels which will render MOSE useless after a certain period of time anyway.... So MOSE is a stopgap measure in even the best case scenarios--one can appreciate what it does but at best it manages to defer for a time (and not resolve) a whole concatenation of threats. Shopkeepers etc will appreciate what it does while it manages to do so, but I suspect the only people who derive unalloyed pleasure from the project are those folks who received huge chunks of the 7 billion euros spent on it so far. For them the project has been a rousing success, but for most other people it's more complicated. (Like all the gleeful headlines about big ships being "banned from the lagoon", when no such thing actually happened, the sunniest headlines about the miracle of MOSE are simply marketing.)
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