UDINE. In the Valencia disaster the entrepreneur from Udine, Marco Passonean expert in zero kilometer water microfiltration, lost several water purification systems installed especially in schools affected by the flood.
But like a good Friulian A passionate person who cares about the fate of the environment, he has not yet quantified the damage: «I can't do it – he explains –: faced with all these deaths, around 300 people including the missing, I am ashamed to ask for compensation. And for now I won't do it.”
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With the exception of some supplies installed in the most affected areas, Passone, living in the northern area of the city, did not suffer the effects of Danathe cold drop that devastated the Spanish city. Contacted by telephone in the city where he has lived for 25 years, the entrepreneur is surprised, he does not believe that his experience could arouse interest in his homeland despite having just spoken to the microphones of Onde Furlane radio in Udine.
The story
The story of Marco Passone tells how a young man, born in 1970 and raised in Baldasseria, the neighborhood south of Udine, recently graduated in Political Science, decided to leave Italy. Twenty-five years ago when not yet thirty years old he left Udine to head towards Spainemployed by a Modena company that had entrusted him with the Spanish and Portuguese building materials markets, there was no talk of brain drain or demographic winter.
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Today Marco smiles and says: «I hadn't yet turned 30 when I agreed to move to Spain, I did it to quickly enter the world of work». Since then it has cut several stages until it was established a small company, Cold&Pure, with four employees and a turnover of 300 thousand euros a year, to provide, including installation, the fountains that allow you to drink and use local water. «We can compare them to Italian water houses – explains the entrepreneur from Udine – even if, unlike Italy, in Spain public water is not sold. The water houses or fountains are not left in private hands.”
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Having clarified this aspect, the entrepreneur points out that his company, established five years ago with a Basque partner, provides the equipment to guarantee public water in schools, canteens and squares where people can get it free of charge.
“In this way, travel is reduced and therefore the number of vehicles moving on the roads, plastic residues in the area and, therefore, CO2” insists the entrepreneur, proving himself sensitive to environmental problems. In this field he follows in the footsteps of his Friulian teacher and partner, as well as owner of Bbtec in Feletto Umberto (Tavagnacco), Livio Busana. «When I have any doubts about the fountains I like to think that Livio and Bbtec are my contacts» continues the entrepreneur from Udine who moved to Spain in the midst of the economic boom, when, in his opinion, it was easier to make some choices.
The relationship with Udine
Today he has a wife and daughter in Valencia and, while carrying Udine in my hearthe cannot imagine his possible return to the Friulian capital. «I will return to Udine at Christmas, I will do it with my daughter to spend the holidays with my mother» continues Passone, not without dwelling on the memories of his youth spent in the Friulian capital. «When I return to Udine – he admits – I realize that I have changed and, most likely, together with me, my city has changed too». Passone, in short, would like to be able to fill that void that separates him from the image of Udine taken when he was still only a few years old.
The tragedy in Valencia
Living in northern Valencia, the area spared from the fury of the water, Passone has his house intact and all his loved ones at his side. Some of his friends had it worse and they think of the entrepreneur from Udine when try to describe the extent of the disaster.
He does it with a lump in his throat that he tries to suffocate with the determination of the Friulian who, in the face of an emergency, rolls up his sleeves and helps those who need it most. «In the destroyed schools we lost the fountains, but as I have already said, I am ashamed to ask for compensation for the damages». Passone struggles to describe the tragedy that struck the southern area of Valencia. He threw away the photos he had taken in the disaster areas because it hurt him too much to continue looking at them.
«We are still experiencing a state of emergency, no one expected such a disaster even though it wasn't the first time it had happened. The Dana is a cyclical phenomenon, generally in this period of the year the floods are repeated, but not on the scale of recent days” underlines Passone in admitting that “this phenomenon is starting to worry precisely because – these are always the words of the entrepreneur Friulian – too frequently affects densely populated areas”.
And to those who ask him if he hopes for a different management of hydrogeological risk, Passone replies: «Knowing Spain, a country very similar to Italy, Nice words are not always followed by concrete actions». The entrepreneur recalls “the now historic flood of 1957 which was followed by the diversion of the river which has kept Valencia safe up to the present day”.
