The Regulation of the Adige

Regulation of the Adige.

The regulation of the Adige is such an old and deeply felt necessity that no one in South Tyrol is unaware of its significance and of the sacrifices made by the people and the government to counter the river's floods and their disastrous consequences. For more than thirty years, the municipalities from the municipal territory of Bozen to the boundary of the district joined together in embankment cooperatives (Leegen), and hundreds of thousands of guilders were spent on cuts and bank fortifications. Yet the success has so far fallen far short of the cherished expectations.

Two causes in particular were to blame for the failure of these great efforts: the lack of a suitable construction plan covering the entire line of regulation*) and the opposition in the Italian districts of the land and in the Venetian region to the planned channelling of the Adige. The poorly grounded fear of dangers and disadvantages resulting from a straightening of the river Adige for the fertile Italian fields, protected only by costly and elaborate dykes, hindered the establishment of a sound construction system as well as of the funds required to cover the enormous expenses it seemed to demand. The result was a method of construction in the most diverse stretches of the river that often ran counter to the purpose, and an exhausting dissipation of forces. Naturally, no fundamental remedy could be achieved in this manner. Although the Leegen and communities bled themselves dry financially through expensive bank fortifications, and the willingness and diligence, indeed even the health and livability of many localities, noticeably languished, the old affliction persisted and finally grew to an alarming scale.

Following repeated urgent representations by the Estates of the land, who declared the Adige question to be a concern of the entire province, the government took up the matter in earnest already during the Vormärz period; the state contribution to the construction costs of 30,000 guilders annually, established as early as 1826, was reaffirmed with a suitable increase pursuant to the supreme decree of 12 December 1846, and a contribution from the land was enlisted for the great undertaking. The former assistant of the Venetian Central Directorate of Building, Florian Pasetti, had already received the commission in 1845 to draft and evaluate the regulation of the Adige in the section from Meran to the border of the Venetian Kingdom by means of precise local surveys. According to his report submitted to the Court Chancellery on 14 December 1845, Novak’s construction proposals for the regulation of the Adige appear entirely appropriate in their essential points. It is not a matter of forcing the Tyrolean Adige over its entire length into a permanent straight line like a canal, but rather of improving certain specific sections, as the course of the river changes in the various sections according to changes in gradient, width, and obstacles. Based on this sound basic view, Pasetti detailed and substantiated his technical proposals for the regulation of the Adige from Meran to the Venetian border for the individual river sections. They consist primarily in the completion of the cuts, partly initiated and partly projected, in the expedient diversion of the Noce (Nos) and the Fersina, in the erection and raising of flood dykes and arrangements for silting, and finally in the construction of valley barriers first on the Fersina, Lavis, and Noce, and then also on the Faltschauer and Passer.

In order that these important works, and among them above all the urgent diversion of the Noce stream, may be tackled with dispatch and brought to completion as swiftly as possible, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Public Works issued the most effective orders on 28 January of this year and made sufficient financial funds available. If the communities involved of German and Italian tongue faithfully support the well-intentioned objectives of the Ministry, the great work of the regulation of the Adige, highly beneficial to the entire land, the improvement of agriculture and the drainage of more than 9 million square fathoms of excellent land, and finally the restoration of healthy air and sustenance for hundreds of thousands of good people will gradually become a splendid reality.

The Ministry has only recently provided fresh proof of how deeply it cares about this national cause of Tyrol.

In order that the regulation works necessary each year with regard to local river conditions can be accurately determined and proposed, it has been suggested that the commission inspections previously conducted only along the right bank of the Adige should in future be carried out continuously on both banks from the Stadthof cut to the district border in all cuts along the direction of regulation, and that the commission costs, always burdensome to those concerned, should be assumed by the state treasury. In appreciation of this proposal, the Ministry of Public Works approved by decree of 17 October of this year that the costs of the periodic inspections to be conducted by technical officials at the Adige works be defrayed solely from the public hydraulic engineering fund and that the reports, together with the construction proposals, be forwarded to the Ministry. — Furthermore, in recognition of the precarious situation of those involved and for the sake of advancing the regulation of the Adige, the same Ministry granted a contribution of 1,896 fl. V. C. C. M. from the endowment funds designated for 1850 for the hydraulic engineering fund toward the construction of the Adige dyke near Kurtinig to the necessary width.

Such commendable provisions of the Ministry will, as we hope from our brave countrymen along the Adige, certainly not fail to achieve their well-intentioned effect for their own good, especially since, according to the recently published reply of the Minister of Commerce to the representation of the Tyrolean deputies, preparations for realizing a railway connection from Verona to Bozen have already been initiated, thus providing the most pleasing prospects for a firm and permanent dyke line along the Adige, that is to say, for a successful regulation of this river.

*) It is true that a Court Chancellery decree of 3 October 1822, following a supreme resolution of 12 September of the same year, had already approved the regulation of the Adige according to the principles that the former major of the Imperial-Royal Engineering Corps Novak had drafted in 1805 on the orders of His Imperial Highness Archduke John ; the execution, however, was never properly set in motion either in technical or in administrative and financial respects; in the districts of Trient and Roveredo the regulation of the Adige persistently stalled, the cuts were for the most part not carried out at all or in an impractical manner, and even the promised state contributions remained unused.