A trip to Saline Joniche to discover another reality (Swiss Press Text 2013, by Antonio Platz) - Swiss Press Award

Il Grigione Italiano

Antonio Platz

SEI, a subsidiary of the Grisons-based company Repower, is planning to build a coal-fired power plant in Calabria. This project has sparked controversy in both Italy and Switzerland. Press releases, both favorable and unfavorable, have been widely reported, and the Canton of Grisons has launched an initiative to prohibit the construction of coal-fired power projects by publicly owned companies. Valposchiavo, the region where Repower is headquartered, Grisons, and Switzerland as a whole, is no longer able to make sense of this mass of conflicting information. Drawing on a trip to Saline Joniche to see firsthand what was happening and the prevailing climate, we have attempted to write an objective text that will provide readers with all the tools to assess for themselves what is happening. The article goes beyond the isolated case of Saline Joniche, providing a smattering of both the ecological problems and the impact of human activity on health.