Posted on December, 15 2000

Venice, Italy: Venice is unarguably one of the most beautiful cities in the world, so it is no surprise that centuries of tourists have clamoured to visit. For all the fine works of art displayed within museums and churches, for all the priceless architecture lining the streets, the ornamentation on bridges and buildings, for many visitors and residents the city's heart beats in the waters of her canals.

Environmentally speaking the whole place is a fabrication. The ragged cluster of islands the first residents settled was built up over centuries. A veritable forest of pilings were sunk into the soft mud and the city grew up upon them.

While continuously working to resist the sea's natural erosion, Venetians have also laboured to preserve their lagoon's navigability by rerouting rivers to minimize silting. Venice's existence has always been one of a delicate balance but perhaps never before has the city balanced as precariously as it does today. So just who's rocking the boat?

Not the gondoliers. They make good money taking tourists on nostalgic tours of the old waterways. Yet many of these men would gladly trade in their relics for modern craft, trading their muscle power for horsepower. Water taxis, the numbers of which have rocketed since the 1960s, make even better money. Faster. One more step up finds craft shuttling 100 daytrippers from mainland tourist hotels and campgrounds. All these boats are in addition to Venice's public "vaporetto" transportation system, which has served the city since the mid-1800s.

As the transport system must now supply restaurants, hotels and shops one quickly begins to see a traffic overload. Just as smog became the metropolitan nightmare as cars accumulated over the years, "moto ondoso," - the turbulence caused by too many powerboats - has become a genuine threat to the health and life of Venice.

Agitation caused by propellers and waves seems to be undermining building foundations. Though few argue that some deterioration is inevitable, especially given the precarious nature of the city's environment, the acceleration of damage has become a serious concern for property owners along the waterways. Canals are occasionally closed and pumped dry when plumbing work is required or when the city wants to raise the "fondamente," the pedestrian streets that line the canals. But workers are finding more and larger holes in buildings and quays.

"Most holes are about 20 centimetres below the water line, at the level of propellers," explained Paolo Lanapoppi, President of Pax in Aqua, the local conservation NGO. Propeller agitation he says, "sucks out cement between the stones and once the first brick starts to move, the process is exponential."

In 1996, C'a Foscari University was forced to evacuate its keystone building when engineers became concerned over increasingly widening cracks. The 16th century Gothic structure happens to sit on the corner of the Grand Canal and Rio Nuovo, a junction of two of the city's busiest waterways. Rio Nuovo, created in 1932 as a shortcut, became so popular with transporters that it had to be rebuilt several years ago and its banks again need repair. Many owners along Rio Nuovo are experiencing difficulty stabilizing their buildings but compared to the estimated cost of restoring C'a Foscari - an estimated US$20 to 25 million - private problems seem a drop in a bucket.

The Italian national government contributes a good deal of money to the coffers of Venice's Magistrato alle Acque who in turn feeds money into a consortium of companies working on the reconstruction and preservation of the city. There is a lot of money being spent and a lot of money being made. Whether the work keeps pace with the daily damage is another story. Centuries have demonstrated that this will be a never-ending labour of love.

The local NGO, Pax in Aqua was founded in 1996 to help reach a balance among users of Venetian waterways. Membership includes 20 rowing and sailing clubs, with a total of 5,000 individual members.

"It's not so much that people are irresponsible, which they're not. It's not so much that the people don't worry about the conservation of the city, which they do. It's that there is no sense of anyone caring for the city. At all," said Lanapoppi. He feels strongly that there is no central direction to strike a balance between those wishing to profit from the city's tourist trade and those wishing to maintain a place where life can continue for city residents themselves.

Pax in Aqua is working with the conservation organization WWF to focus international attention on the need to conserve this jewel among world cities. WWF-Italy would like to see the entire Venetian lagoon receive some type of "protected area" status. Concern is mounting over increased oil tanker traffic in the nearby Marghera industrial zone and WWF and residents alike object to unsightly intervention, the rusty steel pilings, which are now being used to bolster eroding islands instead of more naturally landscaped methods.

WWF-Italy and Pax in Aqua held a demonstration recently involving both rowing and sailing craft, traditional and modern. The organizers hope that focusing world attention on some of the city's needs might bring about a more environmentally responsible tourism and that city leaders themselves will adopt a more sustainable plan of resource management.

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*Elaine Eliah is a freelance journalist based in Venice, Italy