Caspian Report - Issue: 07 - Spring 2014

Davide Tabarelli
48
evaluate potential environmental
and cultural heritage risks. According
to Article 21 of the same Decree,
an EIA procedure may be preceded
by a period of consultation (so called
“scoping”), in which the proposers of
the project agree with relevant authorities
on the documents to be submitted
for the following procedural
steps. This phase is expected to take
up to 60 days; for the TAP project, it
took more than 11 months. In fact,
the TAP consortium began consultation
with the MINBAC in May 2011;
the Ministry issued an opinion only 9
months later (February 2012). Meanwhile,
the TAP consortium begun to
prepare the Environmental Impact
Study, which was presented on March
15 th 2012.
In the period leading up to this first
submission, a total of five alternative
route options were investigated:
the San Foca route was concluded
to represent the optimal solution in
environmental, technical, socioeconomic
and safety terms. This solution
brings the pipeline ashore near San
Foca, and places the Pipeline Receiving
Terminal (PRT), the facility to
connect TAP into the Italian gas network,
in Melodugno. This route was
presented by the TAP consortium to
the Italian authorities as the optimal
solution.
Inevitably, the TAP consortium had
to revise its study in order to account
for Ministry views, issued as part of
the scoping phase. In December 2012,
MINBAC gave the TAP Consortium 9
months to consult with local authorities
and local NGOs on the potential
environmental and social impacts
of the project. In September 2013,
the Consortium came up with a new
document, which addressed some of
the comments received during the
new consultation period. Under the
revised plan, the pipeline still comes
ashore at San Foca, but the landfall
site was shifted slightly to diminish
the impact on the seashore, to further
prevent any damage to the area’s
protected Posidonia sea grass, and
to avoid any visual impact. A 1500 m
micro tunnel 10 meters underground
was also proposed. Furthermore, the
Consortium decided to reduce the
size and to optimize the location of
the PRT in Melendugno, in order for
it to conform with the typical configuration
of local structures such as farm
buildings, thereby reducing its visual
impact.
the TAP consortium made it clear that
San Foca remained the best option for the
pipeline to come ashore.
The documents prepared by the TAP
Consortium were considered by the
main national (MATTM, Ministry of
Tourism) and local (Apulia Region,
Lecce Province, Melendugno Municipality)
authorities. In January
2014, Apulia Region issued a negative
(non-binding) opinion on the EIA
procedure, as it had already done in
September 2012. This decision was
based on “landscape-issues”, and
the regional authorities requested
the Consortium to consider another
landfall site for the pipeline. In March
2014, MINBAC and MATTM requested
some integration to the Consortium
submission of September 2013: the
Ministries required the company to