But the “big gates” project has drawn criticism from both envi-
ronmentalists and some prominent scientists who warn it will turn
into a financial and environmental boondoggle.
Environmentalists are generally skeptical of the New Venice
Consortium, a private, for-profit enterprise that effectively serves as
Venice’s flood protection agency. “The Consortium is a little too
focused on the gates project because that’s what they live off of,” says
Paolo Lombardi of the Rome office of the World Wide Fund for Nature,
which fears the project may consume resources better spent restoring
the natural flood protection functions of the lagoon system.
But the gate’s most prominent critic is Colgate University archeolo-
gist Albert Ammerman, a leading figure in Italian archeology. At vari-
ous sites in Venice, Ammerman has literally uncovered evidence that
the entire design of the gates project is based on false assumptions
about the scale of the problem. “There are fundamental flaws in the sci-
entific studies that the Consortium’s gates are based on,” he says.
“They’ve really screwed this up.”
The problem, Ammerman says, is that Venice is sinking much
faster than anyone realizes. In archeological digs throughout the city,
Ammerman’s team has found layer upon layer of pavements and foun-
dations laid over the centuries in a constant effort to keep the city above
water. Through new carbon-dating techniques, the archeologists were
able to use the layered pavements to calculate the rate of relative sea-
level rise in the city over the past 1,600 years. The data, Ammerman
says, show that the Consortium’s plan seriously underestimates the
likely rate of sea-level rise during the coming century. By adding
Venice’s long-term subsidence rate with the best available estimates of
future sea-level rise, Ammerman reckons the sea will gain between 12
and 39 inches relative to Venice’s streets.
If true, the sea still would not be nearly high enough to breach the
massive gates when they are closed. The problem, Ammerman says, is
that the gates will have to be closed far more often than their planners
say they will. Since virtually all of historic Venice’s sewers empty
straight into the city’s canals and lagoon with little or no treatment, fre-
quent lagoon closures could have serious environmental consequences.
“In a bad year [in the mid-twenty-first century] you could have the
36 Colin Woodard