Legambiente groups in Avellino, Valle Solofrana and Alta Valle del Sabato have called for health and the environment to become priorities in local planning, following a study on contamination and health in Irpinia reported by IrpiniaNews.
The study, attributed to the Avellino Public Prosecutor's Office and the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS), reportedly covered 86 municipalities in the Irpinia area. According to the report, researchers identified 296 sites described as potential contamination sources, including industrial activities, waste-management plants and illegal dumps.
One of the figures cited in the report is proximity: 51% of residents are said to live within one kilometre of at least one of the identified sites.
The same report describes associations between municipalities with higher environmental-risk classifications and higher rates of selected health outcomes, including lung-cancer mortality, overall malignant-tumour incidence, breast-cancer incidence among women and hospital admissions of children for acute respiratory diseases. These relationships are presented as correlations in the local-press account; on the available evidence they do not establish that environmental exposure caused those outcomes.
In response, the Legambiente groups called for structural remediation, ongoing monitoring and ecological conversion of the local economy, rather than isolated interventions.
The IrpiniaNews report also links the debate to the protection of sensitive natural areas. It describes an episode of quad-bike access to Campo Maggiore at Montevergine, within the Partenio Regional Park and a Natura 2000 site. Legambiente reportedly asked for stronger territorial controls and structural measures to prevent motor vehicles from entering the area.
The underlying ISS–Prosecutor study itself, including its title, methodology and statistical details, was not available in the material reviewed for this article. Readers should therefore treat the figures and health associations above as reported claims awaiting consultation of the original study.
