The Acquedotto Pugliese represented a
tremendous improvement for the life of Apulians.
Even the Latin poet
Horace, had written about the drought of Apulia (siderum insedit vapor siticulosae Apuliae).
Indeed, Apulia
was eternally affected by a chronic drought due to its karstic landscape, which
does not retain water.
As result of
this, the Apulians suffered extreme poverty.
Additionally, in
the countryside, water was being taken from swamplands, which caused the spreading
of plagues such as typhus fever, dysentery and cholera.
The project of
building the Acquedotto Pugliese was
strongly supported by Apulian members of the Parliament such as Imbriani, Salvemini and many others.
Works started in 1906.
Acquedotto Pugliese is made by interconnected infrastructures.
The very end of the
Acquedotto is in Santa Maria di Leuca, de
finibus terrae.
According to documents published in 1926, the Acquedotto Pugliese was the longest and the largest of the
world.
Actually, it still remains the longest in the world.
In 1926, It supplied
water to 2 millions and half people spread in 20.000 square kms.
The first gush of water came out in Bari at 11 o’clock, on the 24th April 1915.
Hundreds of people
attended the event.
Over the next days,
thousands of people, like new pilgrims, will move to Bari from the neighboring
cities to contemplate the miracle: unlimited water.
Brindisi, Taranto, Lecce and Foggia had to wait till the end of first world war before being served by water.
In 2005, the Apulian
club of cicloamici, has
proposed to turn the Acquedotto infrastructures into an immense greenways.
On the 12th
and 13th June 2011, 26 millions of Italians declared by a national
referendum that water is a common good belonging to everyone.
Therefore, it is
immoral to profit from its sale.
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