Storms and severe weather: Action-Arezzo intervenes

Arezzo, August 22, 2025 - The recent storms hitting Arezzo are causing much discussion among citizens and politicians. Azione-Arezzo wants to address the problem pragmatically.

We agree with Councilor Sacchetti on two things: climate change will increasingly bring intense weather events, and the city's current sewer system cannot handle such large flows. We've all noticed this, thank you.

Adapting by accelerating interventions: possible ones, such as the routine cleaning of manholes, which hasn't been done in years, the restoration of full functionality to ditches along municipal and provincial roads, which have become filled with silt and are often filled with weeds and waste, the design limitations demonstrated by the Baldaccio underpass... these are urgent matters that require the Mayor and the relevant councilors to act swiftly and effectively. All of this is helpful, but alone it's not enough.

Azione-Arezzo has two plans to work on in parallel: major projects and collateral interventions. The safety improvements currently underway in Castro, Bicchieraia, and Vingone (new embankments, riverbed excavation, overflow basins) affect river flow, but the urban sewer network follows other channels and only partially benefits from those interventions.

The water that once flowed rapidly down the hills around Arezzo and into ditches and fields now directly hits urban areas (concrete, asphalt, streets, and homes), pouring into drains and saturating the sewer system. The water is no longer disposed of quickly.

Too much incoming water is beyond the system's capacity to handle a regular flow that has already grown significantly over the decades: the burst manholes on Via Romana, Pescaiola, and Via Calamandrei speak volumes. It's not just a matter of "discharging" stormwater into secondary ditches and streams. The sewer system in the more recently built neighborhoods and industrial zones has been grafted onto the old pipes. New on old, and so on as long as everything goes well, but now the music has changed, and we still don't know exactly how much and how these changes will impact. Urgent interventions are needed, as already mentioned, but it's also urgent to open a debate on the urban planning of a city that has expanded to the foot of the surrounding hills.

The sewer system that must be built to manage the water flowing from Castelsecco cannot be conceived without upgrading the secondary sewer network, or without repairing and maintaining the efficiency of the ditches and collateral channels connected to it. Precisely because these are projects that won't be implemented quickly, they require planning, a comprehensive city plan, and a long-term political vision.

Azione-Arezzo asks the Administration to do everything it can to mitigate the effects of these intense weather phenomena now and in the future.