Manfredonia landfill cleanup and reclamation

Manfredonia, Italy

Trevi spa, the underground engineering division of Trevi Group, has been working in Manfredonia with innovative techniques to permanently reclaim two contaminated sites used as landfills for municipal solid waste.

The Pariti 1-RSU and Conte di Troia landfills have been disused for decades; they are located in the city of Manfredonia, within the Province of Foggia, about 6km south-west of the town centre. The sites are actually two abandoned calcarenite mines (soft, yellowish, tufaceous limestone) which are located at different heights, respectively on the hydrographic right and left of a small gorge dividing them and named Vallone di Mezzanotte. The two landfills are about 25,000 sqm each; the total volume of discharged waste is 400,000 m3 with maximum thickness ranging from 16 m (Conte di Troia) to 25 m (Pariti 1).

In the years after the landfill was abandoned, ground water analyses were carried out in the area of the city of Manfredonia and significant traces of leachate percolation were found.

After a number of legal actions and the opening of an infringement procedure by the EU, in November 2008, the Court of Justice passed a judgement of conviction for the non-completion of the cleanup of the two sites with severe sanctions.

Such decision was suspended as the Italian Government committed to reclaiming the sites by 2010. A long and complex bureaucratic procedure followed and resulted in the declaration of a state of emergency in May 2009; then a Commissioner of Reclamation and Enforcement Subject were appointed and, during the first months of 2010, the works for the permanent cleanup of the areas were started