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UW helps out Madison’s Italian sister city
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by Matthew Dolbey
Tuesday, May 4, 2004
A delegation from the Italian city of Mantova visited the University of Wisconsin campus to fight a water-pollution problem in Madison’s sister city’s chain of lakes.
Officials from Mantova, one of Madison’s 10 sister cities, paid UW water-pollution and pollution-prevention researchers and professors a visit to discuss how the Italian commission can create a cleaner chain of lakes.
Although Madison and Mantova are sister cities, Dr. William Sonzogni, a researcher at UW’s Limnology Laboratory and director of the Environmental Health Laboratory, said the visit could be attributed to the similar geographical makeup of the two areas.
“They have a lake system similar to ours in Madison,” Sonzogni said. He said Monday’s visit with the Italians consisted of a description of Madison’s chain of lakes.
A question-and-answer session on how to use the suggestions effectively at home will take place today.
Sonzogni added Mantova’s water quality is significantly worse than that in Madison, prompting the need for outside help. Mantova has had at least 1,000 years of water-level regulation, diversion and industry alteration, whereas dense human population has only touched Madison’s chain in the past two centuries.
Though Madison and Mantova have similar characteristics, there were at least two other reasons why UW was chosen to host the foreign officials.
Simonetta Tunesi, an independent consultant hired by Mantovian officials, is also a graduate from UW’s water-chemistry program.
Frank Alfano, coordinator of the sister-city program, said when Tunesi came to Mantova to work on water quality, she said she would make a return trip to Madison, visit with old professors and brainstorm possible solutions.
The other reason the Italians came to UW instead of other college campuses is Madison’s history of limnology, or the study of lakes. Sonzogni said UW actually created the field in the late 1800s, when university researchers started investigating Lake Mendota.
“It all started here in Wisconsin,” Sonzogni said. He added since that time, researchers are almost constantly surveying the surrounding bodies of water.
Sonzogni also said the Italian delegation was surprised at the amount of data UW has collected on the Lake Mendota chain.
“Our chain of lakes [has] often been characterized as the … most studied chain of lakes in the world,” Sonzogni said. Sonzogni added the Italian city was the only area that sought out UW’s expertise in lake research, saying UW researchers have also visited regions in Russia and Africa to investigate lake pollution.
Alfano said this visit might only be the first phase of helping to clean up the Italian lakes, and no real change is likely to take place for several years.
Alfano also noted Madison and Mantova might have a trade mission in the distant future, where the two cities will send envoys to look at business opportunities.
Even though Madison sees benefits in culture, food and language from the Montavian sister-city program, Alfano said the lake-cleanup project could be the best benefit to come out of the bi-city mission.
“If we could initiate the cleanup of Mantova’s lakes, that could probably be the greatest thing [we get out of the sister-city program],” Alfano said. “Their kids, grandkids and even their children … will get to enjoy the benefits.”
