ROME – Italy’s environment minister says Rome and its water company are working to avoid rationing during a nationwide drought.
Minister Gian Luca Galletti told reporters Thursday that while Rome’s situation “worries me most,” both the city and the Acea utility are “working out a solution that can avoid having hundreds of thousands of Roman citizens without water.” He called that scenario “unacceptable.”
Galletti says “I know they are working to avoid” any rationing. He also decried as “intolerable” chronic leaks that lose some 40 percent of the water supply before it reaches users.
Last week, the governor of Lazio, the region including Rome, ordered a stop to drawing water from drought-suffering Lake Bracciano, which supplies 8 percent of Rome’s water. Gov. Nicola Zingaretti urged Acea to find water from other reservoirs instead.
