Chapter The Italian Coast Guard surveillance and specific environmental activities. Results of the national campaign.

Overview & Synopsis

Over the years, specific environmental maritime police campaigns have been thoroughly planned and carried out through the use of ITCG specialized units aiming at protecting the marine environment, in order to discover, analyze and repress environmental-harming activities. In 2023 the Environmental National Coordination Center planned a national campaign to prevent marine pollution and deployed also the Italian Coast Guard Environmental Analysis Laboratory. This operation was called «Clean Waters» and took place from 27th December 2022 to 30th April 2023: it involved all local Coast Guard offices and mainly focused on sites which could generate wastewater discharges. Hundreds of checks were carried out on specific targets and 55 wastewater samples were sent to the laboratory for subsequent analysis. Samples of waste water were analyzed, in order to ascertain any exceeding limits imposed by Italian law and to counteract potential pollution of the Italian seas. On the samples received we performed approximately 2000 chemical-physical, chemical and microbiological analyses; 12 samples resulted “non-compliant” due to 20 exceedings limits set by the Legislative Decree 152/2006.