On behalf of ‘No alla costruzione APL’, with 23 cosignatories, against the construction of a section of motorway 

The petitioners state that there is a risk of irreversible harm to public health due to the project to construct the Autostrada Pedemontana Lombarda (A.P.L.) road, which would be some 157 km long, including 67 km of motorway, 20 km of bypasses and 70 km of local roads, in the territory of 6 municipalities whose territory was impacted by the dioxin cloud (TCDD) released by ICMESA in Seveso in 1976. They say that the earth-moving work will release the dioxin still trapped in the soil, exacerbating the exposure of residents, and that polluted soil remediation work is planned in only three of the six municipalities. Noting also that the A.P.L. project involves significant land use, contrary to COM(2011) 571 final (info 2A), while the two underpasses planned would affect the hydrogeological balance of flooding areas and, last but not least, Lombardy has one of the worst rankings in Europe for air quality (info 2D), the petitioners call for the cancellation of the construction project, which also contradicts the key objectives (environment and health), of Directive 2014/52/EU on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment.