Stacul, E; Mariotti, C; Liberatore, M; Mosca, D; ,
The former Eternit Siciliana S.p.A. plant area, the riprap area and the opposite marine area, included in the Siracusa municipality territory, are the ones of interest. In the past, during the years of industrial activity of the plant (started in the 1953 and ended in the 1993), big quantities of slag scraps and process wastes containing asbestos have been disposed without any preservation of the environment. By the results of the site investigation (audit, survey, sampling, lab analysis, undersea videocam-survey), it was possible to define three main polluted areas: 1) the plant area, 2) the riprap area and, 3) the marine area with a total amount of about 340 cubic meter of asbestos in mineral form, 24.000 square meters of asbestos concrete shingles and 134.000 sqm of polluted soils and marine environment.In the plant area, the preliminary intervention activities have been carried out by traditional building remediation techniques; regarding the buried asbestos, a superficial waterproofing has been made. In the riprap area the remediation activities have been carried out by hand removal of spread material and by mechanical removal of compacted material, by means of a proper engineered mechanical and automated removing and decontaminating cell, designed on purpose for this project.The activities concerning the marine area have been carried out by: a) Preliminary operations (before-activity bathymetric survey, war bombs research survey, intervention of area delimitation by both superficial and deep delimitation to reduce the exchange of sediment and fine material in the marine bottom level), b) Asbestos-concrete material removal (carried out by means of amphibious mechanical excavators and specialized scuba divers), c) Bottom sediments removal (after a final survey, a superficial layer of about 30 cm of sediments has been removed within the work area, in order to refine the intervention) and finally, d) End of works verification: at the end of all MISE activities, the interventions have been verified by a marine bottom inspection with ROV (Remote Operated Vehicles), a chemical-physical characterization of the sediments in place and a final bathymetric survey to check the actual volume of sediment removed.