The Venetian Sewer Dilemma

You may not realize, unless you are both a student of history and of city infrastructure, that Venice, Italy actually had one of the first waste-water disposal systems. Of course, it can’t really be compared to the modern use of water for sewage disposal. The truth is that medieval citizens of Venice threw their waste out the window just like everyone else; it’s just that their streets were made of water, and the canals carried the waste out to sea twice a day on the tide. Unfortunately, their situation when it comes to waste disposal has not greatly improved since the 15th century. Although the city has made stabs at modernizing their waste system, the truth is that the population has grown dramatically and the city still relies largely on the canals and the tides to flush away waste (so to speak). And they are facing an uphill battle when it comes to sewage for several reasons.

Venice is unlike any other city in the world, but the romantic notion of riding gondolas through the waterways is somewhat tempered by the fact that every avenue smells of raw sewage. While locals attribute the stench to such natural occurrences as a buildup of algae and silt, the truth is that a comprehensive structure for waste removal simply does not exist, and much of the waste streaming out of the city continues to go through canals, one way or another. During the 16th century, the city began to build a system of tunnels meant to collect and carry waste, along with rainwater, away from the city in much the same way as the canals. However, these conduits were not implemented on a citywide scale and the fact that they are still in use today, hundreds of years later, is cause for concern.

The long and short of it is that the current system for waste disposal in Venice simply isn’t cutting it. The tunnels that run under the streets and through the walls of the city are just as problematic as waste in the canals when it comes to potential health hazards, mainly because they are in various states of disrepair. The fact that the average person on the street can smell raw sewage throughout the city is only proof that they system is failing. And although Insula, a company responsible for city restoration, is constantly repairing the ages-old sewage disposal system, they are waging a losing battle against 500-year-old plumbing that is literally crumbling beneath the city.

In addition, treatment plants are equally sketchy. There is one central sewage treatment plant for the city located a ways away in Porto Marghera, but the city mainly relies on a handful of small biological plants (140 throughout the city) and private septic tanks (an estimated 6,000 exist because certain businesses and some private residences are required to have them as a measure to alleviate the strain on the current city system). And sadly, much of the city’s waste still seeps into the same place it has for hundreds of years; the waterways.

So you may be asking yourself: why don’t they just install new systems? It seems like it would be much more expedient to stop with the tank testing, the patching up of crumbling tunnels, and the repair work done to existing (yet inadequate) infrastructure. But the city has an architectural heritage to preserve. Although Insula has begun the arduous process of modernizing the city’s plumbing, the project is slow-going as the concerns of preserving historical buildings often win out over health and environmental interests. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the situation gets out of hand. With high levels of bacteria present in the canals (to the extent that swimming is forbidden), raw sewage going into waterways daily (some structures still vent directly into the canals), and a growing population to contend with, the city will inevitably face a health epidemic at some point that will force them to enact major changes in the way they dispose of waste, even if it comes at the expense of historical architecture.