Venice, Italy by Sandy Rivera
I recently traveled to Venice, Italy, and I was captivated by the charm and romantic feeling this city has during wintertime. Venice is renowned for its uniqueness and captivating water canals that wind their way through the heart of the city. This floating city is crisscrossed by more than 150 canals and over 400 bridges. Today, these waterways attract 30 million tourists every year, mainly coming from cruises for a one-day trip. While touring, you will most likely be told DO NOT swim in the canals, and you might wonder why.
Here are the two main reasons:
It is dangerous because of all the gondolas and motorboats.
Unfortunately, the water in the canals is contaminated with household and industrial wastewater, making it unsanitary.
As someone working in the water and wastewater industries, I was left puzzled to know that this is the case given the technologies that we have today. How is there not a possible solution?
Venice has no fresh groundwater underneath it, so it initially had to rely on rainwater for drinking. Today, their tap water is pumped in from the Italian mainland. While their potable water problem has been addressed, there is still no solution for their non-potable waters. Venice doesn’t have sewage pipes and conduits because they would require raising the entire city by half a meter, and that is not a possibility. Even though the houses are now equipped with septic tanks, most of the wastewater still ends up in the canals. I found out that the tides flush it out into the sea twice a day, exchanging it with clean seawater. Imagine swimming in all that… you would probably get a deadly infection. Not to mention that the waste from the chemical plants in the industrial area and from the boats also contribute to these polluted waters. On the positive side, larger facilities, like hotels and restaurants, have more sophisticated systems that filter the wastewater before sending it to the canals.
I do not know what could be the solution to Venice’s problem, and I have no idea what the Italian government thinks about, or cares about, these environmental issues. Maybe our water and wastewater community has ideas on how to fix this issue. If yes, please let us know. We’d love to start a conversation about this.
Regardless of the wastewater issue in Venice, I would still recommend visiting this beautiful city, perhaps when it's not too hot so you don’t have to smell sewage all day, and before the city disappears underwater.
Written by: Sandy Rivera, Recruiting Coordinator at Hunter Crown, LLC
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