Sacco River Valley

At Colleferro the Bombrini Parodi Delfino (BPD) munitions works grew from the 1910s and 1920s, making explosives (TNT, nitrocellulose) and chemical intermediates. After the war it turned to industrial and agricultural chemicals: its «Chemical products division» made hexachlorocyclohexane and lindane, phosphoric esters, copper oxychloride and other insecticides such as Aldrin, Chlordane, DDT and Endrin. In the 1960s the Sacco Valley Industrial Development Area was created; today there are more than 200 firms, many right beside the river.

In 2005 a milk sample from a dairy farm at Gavignano was found to contain beta-hexachlorocyclohexane (β-HCH) above the EU limit of 0.003 mg/kg. A state of emergency was declared, extended until 2012 and widened from the Colleferro, Segni and Gavignano area to the farmland and riverbanks down to Ceprano and Falvaterra. β-HCH is highly resistant to degradation and accumulates in plants and animal tissue; lindane has been banned since 2001.

Other problems are chlorinated solvents in groundwater, metals and metalloids in soil and groundwater (partly natural, given the volcanic soils), asbestos-cement items and abandoned waste.

In 2013 the site was downgraded and handed to the Region; the Lazio Administrative Court annulled that decision in 2014 and the new national perimeter dates from 2016.