MILAN, October 30, 2019 – Salini Impregilo and its U.S. subsidiary Lane celebrated in the presence of the Florida state governor a ground-breaking event for the Caloosahatchee (C-43) West Basin Storage Reservoir, a $524-million project that will help rehabilitate the Caloosahatchee River and Estuary as part of the state’s Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan. Governor Ron DeSantis was joined by members of the South Florida Water Management District, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, as well as conservation groups, the local community and environment stakeholders for the start of one of the most important projects of its kind in the United States.

“This is a big step forward in expediting one of our most important Everglades restoration projects,” said Governor DeSantis. “Once complete, the C-43 Reservoir will store approximately 55 billion gallons of water, with 19 miles of embankments and 15 miles of canals to reduce harmful discharges from Lake Okeechobee and help bring the Caloosahatchee River and Estuary back to health.”

Over the years, the estuary has suffered from harmful discharges from residential and agricultural development in the area. The project will promote a healthy biological system through the capture and controlled release of water. It will reduce the amount of fresh water flows to the estuary from basin run-off from the lake during wet periods, and maintain a desirable minimum flow of fresh water to the estuary during dry periods.

Work on the reservoir includes the construction of an earth-fill dam with a perimetre of about 16.3 miles (26.2 kilometres) and a separator dam of 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometres) in length. The reservoir will encompass about 10,000 acres (40.5 square kilometres) and store 170,000 acre-feet (209.7 million cubic metres) of water when full. Work is expected to be completed by 2024.

“Lane has worked in the state of Florida for decades and we are proud to be part of this very important effort to help preserve the Everglades,” said Dyelan Phillips, Vice President of Florida Operations for Lane. “We take our environmental commitments as a company very seriously anywhere we work, and to be part of one of the largest hydrologic restoration programs ever in the United States is an honor.”

In the United States, Lane is working on a number of projects to protect the environment, such as reducing combined sewer overflows into rivers and lakes. These include water treatment projects in Georgia and Tennessee. With Salini Impregilo, it is involved in big projects to help cities avoid flooding during heavy rainfall, such as the Three Rivers Protection & Overflow Reduction Tunnel (3RPORT) in Ft. Wayne, Indiana; the Dugway Storage Tunnel in Cleveland, Ohio; and the Anacostia River Tunnel, which along with the Northeast Boundary Tunnel (NEBT) in Washington, D.C., belongs to the city’s Clean Rivers Project. This strategic positioning in the U.S. water infrastructure sector will be strengthened by Progetto Italia, a plan led by Salini Impregilo to consolidate the construction sector in Italy to compete better for contracts not only in the water infrastructure sector but also in sustainable mobility.