Why is Venice so wet?

So what I say is, if you have a choice, is saved this one for the morning and just pretend like where your local NPR station or a cup of Joe like Josh is drinking. Yea, and yeah, it's all so good and let's let's do this morning style. Let's do it man, um, let's do this morning style in Italian. Yeah, this is gonna be a fan favorite, I predict because there's some Italian pronunciations that I'm sure you will do for every buddy. Right, I'm gonna do it. My best

was good, good little taste of it. Yes, that's one of the accidents you can have a great time with without people saying that you're offensive. That's a T shirt. Yeah, so Chuck you heard about them sea levels yeah and fallen. Yeah, due to climate change. I'm saying, well, it's climate change. To the big bone of contention is whether it's human cause or anthropogenic. Uh. The thing is there are there,

It is undeniable. The sea levels are rising at a rate of about three millimeters a year, which doesn't sound like much, But buddy, if you live for a thousand years, you'd see the sea levels rise by three meters, which is almost ten ft in America. Yeah, not the biggest deal in some parts of the world. Big deal in Venice. Yeah. And you know, if you're waiting a thousand years to watch it rise three meters, that's the current rate of

sea level rise, it could speed up tremendously. And while three millimeters might not sound that much to you out in the Rockies, yeah, because it's nice and dry there in the middle of the mountain. They're all stoned, right, Yeah, because it's legal there. Who cares. If you're in a place like um, the Maldives, you're saying, wow, my country is probably not going to exist in the next like

twenty years. That's scary. If you're in New Orleans worried about the same thing, and a little town known as Venice, Italy is facing the same problem. It has been for a very long time. And you say little town, Uh, it is getting smaller, not only physically, but the population because Venice is such a mess, has declined down to about sixty people now over the years from like a hundred and eighty. Yes, because people are tired of everything wet.

They are they used to get wet um back in they would get wet about ten times a year due to flooding. They could expect ten noteworthy floods a year. And when we say noteworthy floods, we mean like the squares in the throughout the city or flooded up to maybe your knees, kind of like the whole ground floor of Venice. Yeah, it gets flooded like you're slogging around, which I mean sounds kind of fun when you're a kid, but it's not that fun, especially when you're an adult

who maybe a germophobe. Because Venice has an antiquated sewer system that's antiquated is the perfect word. Yeah, by antiquated, we mean all of the um sewer pipes go right out into the canals and they have along the um along the years added like septic tanks to treat the stuff first, but not everybody has those um and sometimes they get backed up too. But the raw sewage or septically treated sewage in Venice goes into those canals that

you float around in um boats. And when you're around in the flood, like a tourist, you're swimming around in fequal material. The tourist get in that water. There's a picture of it um on a oh Man, I can't remember. I think like a Bloomberg article about Venice or maybe wired. But it's like, if you know about Venice, you'll think these people are crazy for swimming in this flood water. And it shows a couple of tourists like swimming in a flood in the middle of the square, um the

San Marco, the San Marco Square. Yeah. Yeah, And now that you know it's it's gross to see, they're like it tastes briny and sort of ou mommy, right, why are my lips swollen? Yeah, it's uh, it's That's one of many many problems facing Venice right now. An antiquated sewer system, and a lot of the problems are unique just because of the city and how it's created. Yeah, let's talk about this, because Venice is not something I knew a ton about. I knew it was on the water.

I knew it was sinking. Shout out by the way to Venice is sinking Athens band and stuff. You should know fans. Um, well, then I like them already, Yes, no, you know those guys he does. In fact, no old talks Jerry doesn't like. Oh yeah, yeah, they're great. He launches into like a five minute discourse. Uh So I knew a little bit about Venice, very little though I've never been there. But when I watched this awesome video that Josh found, Um, we should go ahead and plug

it because it's just super cool. Yeah. It's called um Venice Backstage Period, how does Venice work? And it was created by the Insula SPA, which is I guess the production arm of the city of Venice. Yeah, so it's like a locally produced video about Venice. But it's one of the most fascinating, like eighteen minute videos I've ever seen. Yeah, I mean they pack a lot of learning into that

eighteen minutes. Um. So if you don't know much about Venice, imagine if you do know something about New York City. Imagine like the Greenwich Village. Uh. And I use Greenwich Village because it's not on like the direct like north southeast West Grida. They got all those crazy diagonal streets. Imagine if it's so hot right now. Yeah, um, imagine Greenwage Village if every block was an island. And that's

essentially what Venice is. It is a hundred and twenty four tiny little islands all packed together, and instead of streets, you have water, a hudred and eighty three canals and it's all connected by little foot bridges and real bridges. Uh and yes, canals by boat. Yeah. I mean it's crazy when you've never even seen like the big zoom in from above bird's eye view of what Venice looks like.

And I was like, that's what's going on. Yeah, it's crazy because I mean when, especially when you're in the city, like you're walking over canals, but you don't give too much thought to him. You're just like, oh, that's so quaint. Yeah, you're almost thinking like they dug that out on purpose or something to get tourists. Now, those are necessity. It's it's odd. It was an odd and different way for a city. To form. They didn't start from a city

center and grow out. Each little block in section was its own little thing. Yeah, it was kind of its own little municipality. Um. And the reason that these people set up shop hundreds and hundreds of years ago on these islands was for for protection. Venice was a very well protected municipality or cluster of municipalities. Right. Yeah. It sits in a lagoon and there are three waterways that flow water in and out every day, twice a day

with the tides. Yeah, the Adriatic flows in um to the lagoon and uh brings it out, brings the water back out at low tide, right yeah, yeah, high tide, it brings water in low tide, it takes the water out, which is why they're not that worried about their sewage going into the canals because because the the water comes in and kind of brings all the trash out to the sea and then no one sees it. It's the self a flushing system. Yeah, well, I mean it pretty

much is. So that's how they've been able to put up with that for so long because twice a day, um, the waters exchange, there's there is a big exchange to it. The problem is when that water comes in, especially when you include sea level rises and now up to six times more flooding per year. Remember it was like ten times a year and now that's up to about sixty floods. Um, you have kind of a problem. Now you've got the You have a sinking city essentially, is what it's what

it amounts to. Yeah, I mean it's it's two things. It's the water rises in Venice itself. The buildings are sinking. So those are two bad things that go, you know, that don't taste great together. The reason that sinking is because they extract freshwater from beneath the city, right, Yeah, so there's less of a solid foundation now and um there's also drilling nearby, like for natural gas or um fossil fuels, and uh, it's also just a roading well, yeah,

they've done a lot of things over the year. When you've got seawater lapping up against well, let's step back, it's not just dirt and stuff. They realized pretty early on we're not gonna be around unless we in case, the entire city basically in brick below the waterline, and they came up with some really ingenious construction methods that

you can super ingenious in that Venusbeck stage video on Vimeo. Yeah, but even though they have been ensconce to the whole city and brick as a foundation, that's was laughing salt water and it's you know, these canals are busy. It's not just the gondolier singing the song like there. If you see real footage and that movie footage, they're packed with boats, motor boats, cruise ships, all sorts of stuff.

And that action creates a lot of movement in the water and it just whittles away at those bricks little by little over the years, over hundreds and hundreds of years, and then that's why Venice is sinking. Um. Part of the other problem too, is a sediment builds up in the canals. They're supposed to close them down on a fairly regular basis, basically damn them up, drain them and then remove the sediment, and basically, um, they stopped doing that as frequently as before, and there there's been a

problem as a result. Plus saltwater uh permeates bricks. Bricks are um semipermeable and they have capillary action, so it draws saltwater up into the bricks, which I mean, as long as bricks are connected by mortar, that water, that saltwater will rise all the way to the top of a building. And when the water evaporates, the water is gone, but the salt stays, and it apparently increases in volume

tremendously and basically crushes the bricks from the inside out. Yeah, and they've they've been taken steps and measures a little by little in different ways over the years to help. But they're they're kind of fighting a losing battle though, like inject resin into the between the bricks and into the bricks with hydraulics a barrier. But you know, they're fighting,

like I said, they're fighting mother nature here, right. So finally they've said, let's turn our attention from these um these piecemeal measures of you know, kind of of treating bricks and go to where the problem is. Let's go to the doorstep of the problem, which is the Adriatic and the three inlets into the lagoon. And they turn their attention to that. And now they've come up with a pretty great plan for dealing with rising tides and floodwaters.

And I think we will get to that plan right after this break I knew you're gonna say, all right, so there's a plan. You know one thing on that video too quickly that amazed me. You're talking about the building construction. Um, the walls in Venice. The exterior walls have a tendency to bow out at the top, and uh so they have these these basically hooks that pull from the inside the walls in and then those long metal hooks travel into the floor where they're spiked into

the floor. So they're trying to pull it in there. And then the roofs of the buildings in Venice aren't just like hey, let's keep the water out there, literally like caps that locked the walls in at the top. So it's, uh, it's not just like a weather protector roof. It's it's actually like if the roof wasn't there, the walls would bow out. And then the interior walls don't even connect rigidly to the exterior walls. Yeah, it allows some gifts so that they can move back and forth.

Is the wave action basically moves the walls. So, I mean, we we're saying Venice is a mess, but it's really an ingenious city of just engineering. The fact that it's still there at all. You know. Another construction point that kind of stuck out to me was that buildings in Venice are built on piles of steaks, like wooden steaks, driven into the ground to kind of reinforce the mucky

ground to build on first. It's really a remarkable place when you look at all the things they've had to do just to make that what shouldn't even be a city. I mean, let's let's get real, but it's a very neat, beautiful city. Have you been. You me and I went last summer, and it is gorgeous. Yeah, very neat. Yeah yeah.

Just walking around and all of a sudden, you're like, oh, I'm next to three thousand year old ruins just basically part of the cityscape, right, whereas here in Atlanta you're like, oh, there's a Burger king, right, but it's from the sixties exactly, Alright. So we we had a pretty good cliffhanger that they had an idea. So let's we'll go ahead and announce it. Okay, Well, the idea is called mosa or you should do this, chuck,

the modulo spadimentale elector electro mechanico. So that's the experimental electro mechanical module. Which is the reason that that has that clumsy name is because the M O S E. The acronym is also the Italian spelling from Mosa or Moses and basically what the what Moses was well known for. One of his many hits was parting the Red Sea. Right, Well, they thought that was very clever hit. They were coming. I don't know, he did a lot of stuff in Commandments.

That was a pretty big hit, Burning Bush. I would say the Red Sea was his American pie or no, yeah, that was his Baker Street. The Ten Commandments was his Uh, right down the line, who did Jerry rafferty Baker Street? That was the saxophone one right and right down the lane was his other hit. So I've never heard that one. You have? You just don't know, Okay, says you was just about to bust it out too early. So anyway,

Mosa Moses in Italian. Uh, it's a that's a clever use of an acronym because this thing, the contraption they came up with, it's pretty ingenious and clever. To defend against these rising high tides, which are known as aqua alta aqua alta Yeah, and this is one of those things where you say ingenious and clever, but I would add in its simplicity. These are my favorite kinds of projects. When man looks at something and says, well, why don't we just build a big gate? And that's pretty much

what it is. Yeah, but it is more complicated than that. And let's let's talk about the mosa So. Um. Remember we said sea levels are rising in general, but high tides are a really big problem in Venice because they're getting higher. Um. So the Mosai project, uh is it consists of a bunch of gates that can be broad up and raised on command. They have a magician who commands the gates to rise, and um, the gates come up and basically separate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Yeah.

So imagine a big, huge steel door that lays flat on the bottom of the ocean, and uh, they fill it with air and it's got two hinges on one side, So that big steel door just raises up as it fills with air, obviously becoming more buoyant, and until it looks like about a forty five degree angle, uh, facing out into the sea away from the city. And that's it. It's just a barrier. It just swings up and I think there's about a two foot differential in the water levels.

And uh, it essentially prevents high tide from happening within the Venice Lagoon. That's exactly right. And um, these these basically walls, floating walls is what they amount to. Like you said, they have hinges on the bottom. Uh. And there's all sorts of pictures of the Mose project, the mosa A project, um, all over the internet. I found it exponentially easier to understand when I saw what they were talking about. It's like, oh, that's all it is.

But allow us to clumsily try to get this across. So you've got the hinges, um hinge, the metal wall to the bottom of the sea floor right, well, not to the sea floor, well to a concrete trench within the sea floor that the thing sits in when it's not in use. Yeah, they tried to pound it right into the sand and they were like, it's not a working right, get us some concrete. So they these trenches also provide a place for engineers to go underneath and

basically fix things and fiddle with stuff. And it also provides the delivery system for the compressed air that the hollow metal walls gates basically um fill up with air so that they start to stand upright, Yeah, And how long does that take? Like twenty minutes or thirty minutes, and then uh, it takes about the same time for it to fill them with seawater again to return them back to their laying position on the floor. It was a little quicker going down, but which makes sense. Yes,

but that's pretty much it. When the high tides coming, they fill them with air so that the gates stand up above water. And then on the lagoon side, the sea level stays low. On the sea side, it can get as high as it likes. And because they're hinged and filled with air, they're not rigid, which means that they can take a pounding and they can sway back and forth a little bit and still not give. So it is, like you said, it's it's ingenious in its simplicity.

It is and it's uh officially launched in two thousand three, and that was and this was after years and years of um I guess ideas and bids and plans, and the Mosai project is what finally went out. They said it was gonna be two to three billion dollars and would be on Uh it's still not done. They're looking at now. Um. They did the first successful test late last year, and like with every big project, city project like that, it's going to be over budget and over

uh schedule. Yes, but there's a lot of accusations of corruption. Really yeah, Southern Italy a big public project, so corrupt. The the group that suggested the thing in the first place is called the you want to take it? Someone's gonna be offended by me, by the way. Maybe I'll bet they're not Italian. The Consortio then no EVA, So that's basically the new Venice Consortium. It's a group of companies and construction companies that said, hey, we've got an

idea for this problem. Let's try this. Yeah, and we'll build it for you. We had all the companies under our banner that can provide everything you need, and they said, we'll build it for you for two to three billion dollars and every but you want what which sounds like a lot, including to people in Venice, is that American dollars or is that euros? That's American dollars As far

as I'm seeing right here. Um, but if you go to Venice like uh, martinis like fifteen dollars, it's like twenty or five bucks for like a little tiny martini at Harry's Bar. I know. So it sounds like a lot, But all you have to do is go open the cash register at Harry's Bar in a Tuesday afternoon and you can get two to three billion dollars to pay for this project. You know, Alright, someone's a little salty about their business. It was really expensive. It was neat,

but it's also like really expensive. Epe is not cheap. No. Um. So there was a lot of a lot of accusations of corruption, of kickbacks, the other thing being artificially expensive. Apparently there was a study that found like this thing is, they've padded this tremendously. But by the time this came amount um public opinion apparently wasn't enough to stop at construction had started. They did their first test in two

dozen twelve apparently was successful. And the Mosai project continues, and I believe they're they're tracking for two thousand sixteen to have all of the gates across all three of the inlets operational. Yeah, and you said multiple gates. So each of these uh inlets. You have the Leado, uh, the Malamoco, and then I pronounce this Cheogia, but I heard it much much differently on the video, so I know that's not right. But those are the three inlets,

and um, well that was a British student. They just pronounced things however they want, and then we assume because they're European they know you're right. Uh. So it's not like one big gate for each of these things because it's on a curve and you can't just have one huge gate. So the um, the Malamoco and the Cheogia have Uh, the Malamoco is nineteen gate, that g has eighteen, and they're all in one row. And then the big daddy, the Leado has two rows, one with twenty gates and

with one gates. Yeah, and we're not all the same same they're the same width, but they're not all the same height, right, And I mean they don't need to be summer taller than others. They're all about sixteen ft thick. So these are huge, huge walled gates. So yeah, I think we should I don't know if we've gotten across how big they are you said there's sixteen ft or about five meters thick. Um, they're the the deepest amount of water is a hundred feet, which is like thirty meters. Uh,

so these things are taller than that or if need be. Yeah, uh and then they're uh what about three d and fifty tons. I think that's just for like one of the gates. Yes, like one single panel could weighs as much as a seven thirty seven seven seven And they they are using something that Rolls Royce makes that is basically an elevator for ships to convey each of the gates out to the sea floor. Yeah. And it takes

three days to move a gate. Yeah. So they're really really big gates, but they are going to be very nimble when filled with compressed air and smacked around by waves. Plus they're in water, so that helps with the weight. That reminds me that this project faces a lot of problems that that the project faces. So there's there's some people have said, maybe this is a good idea in theory,

but practically this may or may not work. What it's sea levels rise faster than we think, then these things are going to basically be very expensive, totally obsolete gates, like the water would just go right over the top of the exactly. That's a nightmare scenario. Yeah that when I when I saw what I saw, it didn't look like to me they came out of the water enough. I was like, I would add another five feet. Yeah, just to be safe, Just to be safe, you know. Um,

So that's one possible problem. Another one that apparently they haven't addressed is the build up a sediment. Remember we said that you have to clean out the canals pretty frequently because sediment builds up backs up septic systems, that crumbles brick walls. Well, it will also fill in these trenches, which apparently need to be totally flat, and as sediment builds up, then these things aren't going to lay flat again, and you may have some problems. Apparently that's something that

hasn't been addressed by the Mosai project. How to deal with sediment build up. Well, I know they've got about a hundred and fifty people that will just be full time caretaking staff. Uh, And I guess part of their job will be to clean that stuff up. Huh. I would guess. Uh. And some of the other problems. Um, anytime you're undertaking a project like this has to interact with the elements and mother nature, they're going to be

environmental concerns and uh. They range the spectrum here from we don't really know how this is going to affect things, uh and disrupt the ecosystem too. Well, wait a minute, we need this constant flow in and out of water twice a day two flush our giant toilet that we're

living in, right Uh. And proponents will say it's gonna be better actually because and it sort of makes sense if there's, um, if you have three holes going into something and you plug up two of them, you're gonna have a stronger flow in the one hole, right exactly. So they're saying, we can actually use this to manipulate this flow of water artificially and make a better toilet

flusher exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that Hopefully the ones who are like, well, but why don't we just use this as a an opportunity to update our septic system as a whole or sewer system as a whole, Hopefully those guys will win out. But pollution, increased pollution levels are definitely an issue that environmentalists are looking at. And uh, I just get the picture in southern Italy. It's a tough Uh, it's tough game, you know. It

seems to be a lot of fighting. Like this is a very controversial project, but it still remains so Yeah, and it seems to be marching on. They they One of the other criticisms was that they they basically just ignored easier, less expensive options that have proven effective elsewhere the Netherlands. Yeah, are like building barrier islands, underwater dikes. But although apparently they have a lot of this stuff already and it's not necessarily helping. It's mainly just reinforcing

the natural um barriers that already exist. I guess they're like, why don't we just put up more of that? Yeah, I think it's interesting to Uh, it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out. I really hope it works, because they've sunk a lot of money into this and they I mean, they moved all in on this mosa system. Like they can't wrap it and say, well, it didn't work, Let's think of something new. Yeah, And I wonder how

how much it would be to just like that. You can't just add a new gate, a new taller gate. If the sea levels do rise faster, and they these these the ones they have proved too short because it has to sit flush in the trench. So you'd have to create a whole another trench to accommodate this larger gate would be a real problem. That's the worst case scenario to me is if it's uh yeah, if they're too short, the water lefts and surely they thought of that.

It didn't look right to me. But they know what they're doing, right, I hope, so pretty neat and hopefully you know, they had all this in that that great video, a lot of footage where it looked like it looked like some parts of Venice on a daily basis with high tide is slightly underwater. Yeah. They to show people walking to work through water and delivering stuff to places through water, and and everyone looks very sick of it. Yeah. Go check out um on vimeo Venice x stage. Uh,

that is definitely worth watching. Venice backstage period. How does Venice work? I think they meant to put a cole in there. The period bugs me a period in a title dif from England. Josh, No, these are the Venetians that made this diffrom Venice, Josh um, they know what they're doing. Yeah, and check out stuff on the MOSE project Mose Mose. I just want to say, moves from

Paper Moon your favorite movie, right boom uh. And if you want to learn even more about the MOSE project, you can type in m O s E Project in the search bar how stuff works dot Com and that will bring up this article. Yeah, and hey, check out Venice is sinking from Appens, Georgia. Yeah, that's nice. My one buddy is no longer in the band, but you're still friendly with the other guys. They haven't been in touch actually, but they said they said record and they're

good folks. Well, and if you ever get a chance to go to Venice, I recommend you do it because it is in Neat Town. But don't go to Harry's Bar. You have to go to Harry's Bar. Is that the legendary place, that's where the Bellini was created? Why didn't you have a Bellii? She had a Billiini? I had a Martini? What a Bellinis? A peach juice, peach pure in champagne. Very good, but again it's like basically a shot for I think it was like twenty five dollars

or maybe even more. Yeah, but you have to you have to go. You walk past the seat that Hemingway used to drink at, right, you know it's a neat place. Yeah, there's a lot of those seats around the world, though, you know, find a cheaper one. I think we already went through the whole rigamar role that leads us up to listener mail. So now it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this murderer in our myth midst murder the mist you're thinking of guerrillas in the Midst. Hey,

guys have a boring job. So I binge listen. Uh several days a week to your show. Was listening to the Insanity Defense episode and I heard a very familiar name. I happened to have met John Delling during his killing spree. I used to manage a coffee shop and a guy was oddly peering in the window with his hand pressed against the glass though the store was clearly open. Uh. He paced around the building for a while. I thought it was pretty weird, so I sent the girl working

with me pretty brave. If you Josh, his name is Josh Okay. I sent the girl working with me in the back. Oh, no, okay, I take it all back. He was trying to protect her, and that was me. I sent her in the back and told her to hang out there until he left. He came in, looked the menu over and asked where ice cream was any good? I gave him a free sample. Here you go, we don't want any trouble. He liked it. He liked it and said he had to go to his car to

get some money. He literally said, I'll be right back. Then he went out to his car for a while and drove away. A couple of days later, the girl I was working with that night called crying and told me to find a newspaper. Well, no wonder he sent it back. She's clearly fragile. She's crying that like the guy was at the front door. She seen that Sunday New York Times is six dollars now. On the front page was a large mug shot of our guy from

a couple of nights previous. Turns out he had actually left the store and murdered someone and um because the ice cream drove him. No, I guess so, and he stole something. I sold her car that same evening. Anyway, just thought it was an interesting connection. The guy was definitely in need of some help, and, as you mentioned, had no shot at getting it in the legal system here in Idaho is clearly a tricky ethical area. Thanks everybody. And then it's from Josh knowl that's from way back

kind of the insanity defense. Yeah, that was a good one, though it turned out we learned a lot. So he fed a guy ice cream anyone out and killed someone. Man, is really scary stuff. And his coworker, who was around for none of it, cried when she read the paper. Yeah, apparently she never got any work done because anytime a customer came in, she gets sent to the back, you know, uh crazy. What was the dude's name? Josh and Hole?

Oh yeah, Josh. Thanks Josh. It's always good to hear from another Josh, because we are the greatest names on the planet. Josh. That's such a great name. It is, especially if you say it in other ways like yosh or hush. There's all sorts of ways you can say Josh, but really the only right way to say it is Josh. And it's a verb. Yeah, you can Josh and it's a it's a friendly verb too, because you're making fun of somebody, but in a non hostile way. Yeah, chuck

is a verb too, how about that? Yeah, look at us, right, Josh and chucking. Yeah, that's good stuff. Chuck. I can't believe it's taking us this many years to come up with that. If you want to tell us to shut up, you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, drop us a line via email at stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. And wait, wait, don't press stop yet. Go check out our awesome website.

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