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Why is Venice so wet? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. NOAs with us again and
0:17
Speaker 1: it's another morning edition. Yeah, we got an email. I
0:21
Speaker 1: think we had our last morning thing that session not
0:24
Speaker 1: to want ago, and someone wrote down said, please don't
0:26
Speaker 1: do that again. I didn't think it was that bad.
0:28
Speaker 1: You guys are clearly like really tired and not the same.
0:32
Speaker 1: So what I say is, if you have a choice,
0:34
Speaker 1: is saved this one for the morning and just pretend
0:37
Speaker 1: like where your local NPR station or a cup of
0:40
Speaker 1: Joe like Josh is drinking. Yea, and yeah, it's all
0:44
Speaker 1: so good and let's let's do this morning style. Let's
0:47
Speaker 1: do it man, um, let's do this morning style in Italian. Yeah,
0:53
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a fan favorite, I predict because
0:55
Speaker 1: there's some Italian pronunciations that I'm sure you will do
0:59
Speaker 1: for every buddy. Right, I'm gonna do it. My best
1:02
Speaker 1: was good, good little taste of it. Yes, that's one
1:05
Speaker 1: of the accidents you can have a great time with
1:08
Speaker 1: without people saying that you're offensive. That's a T shirt. Yeah,
1:14
Speaker 1: so Chuck you heard about them sea levels yeah and fallen. Yeah,
1:20
Speaker 1: due to climate change. I'm saying, well, it's climate change.
1:24
Speaker 1: To the big bone of contention is whether it's human
1:28
Speaker 1: cause or anthropogenic. Uh. The thing is there are there,
1:34
Speaker 1: It is undeniable. The sea levels are rising at a
1:37
Speaker 1: rate of about three millimeters a year, which doesn't sound
1:41
Speaker 1: like much, But buddy, if you live for a thousand years,
1:44
Speaker 1: you'd see the sea levels rise by three meters, which
1:47
Speaker 1: is almost ten ft in America. Yeah, not the biggest
1:51
Speaker 1: deal in some parts of the world. Big deal in Venice. Yeah.
1:55
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're waiting a thousand years to
1:57
Speaker 1: watch it rise three meters, that's the current rate of
2:01
Speaker 1: sea level rise, it could speed up tremendously. And while
2:05
Speaker 1: three millimeters might not sound that much to you out
2:09
Speaker 1: in the Rockies, yeah, because it's nice and dry there
2:14
Speaker 1: in the middle of the mountain. They're all stoned, right, Yeah,
2:17
Speaker 1: because it's legal there. Who cares. If you're in a
2:20
Speaker 1: place like um, the Maldives, you're saying, wow, my country
2:24
Speaker 1: is probably not going to exist in the next like
2:27
Speaker 1: twenty years. That's scary. If you're in New Orleans worried
2:31
Speaker 1: about the same thing, and a little town known as Venice,
2:34
Speaker 1: Italy is facing the same problem. It has been for
2:38
Speaker 1: a very long time. And you say little town, Uh,
2:42
Speaker 1: it is getting smaller, not only physically, but the population
2:45
Speaker 1: because Venice is such a mess, has declined down to
2:49
Speaker 1: about sixty people now over the years from like a
2:53
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty. Yes, because people are tired of everything wet.
2:57
Speaker 1: They are they used to get wet um back in
3:01
Speaker 1: they would get wet about ten times a year due
3:03
Speaker 1: to flooding. They could expect ten noteworthy floods a year.
3:07
Speaker 1: And when we say noteworthy floods, we mean like the
3:10
Speaker 1: squares in the throughout the city or flooded up to
3:14
Speaker 1: maybe your knees, kind of like the whole ground floor
3:16
Speaker 1: of Venice. Yeah, it gets flooded like you're slogging around,
3:19
Speaker 1: which I mean sounds kind of fun when you're a kid,
3:22
Speaker 1: but it's not that fun, especially when you're an adult
3:25
Speaker 1: who maybe a germophobe. Because Venice has an antiquated sewer
3:29
Speaker 1: system that's antiquated is the perfect word. Yeah, by antiquated,
3:34
Speaker 1: we mean all of the um sewer pipes go right
3:38
Speaker 1: out into the canals and they have along the um
3:41
Speaker 1: along the years added like septic tanks to treat the
3:44
Speaker 1: stuff first, but not everybody has those um and sometimes
3:48
Speaker 1: they get backed up too. But the raw sewage or
3:52
Speaker 1: septically treated sewage in Venice goes into those canals that
3:55
Speaker 1: you float around in um boats. And when you're around
4:00
Speaker 1: in the flood, like a tourist, you're swimming around in
4:04
Speaker 1: fequal material. The tourist get in that water. There's a
4:06
Speaker 1: picture of it um on a oh Man, I can't remember.
4:11
Speaker 1: I think like a Bloomberg article about Venice or maybe wired.
4:14
Speaker 1: But it's like, if you know about Venice, you'll think
4:17
Speaker 1: these people are crazy for swimming in this flood water.
4:20
Speaker 1: And it shows a couple of tourists like swimming in
4:22
Speaker 1: a flood in the middle of the square, um the
4:25
Speaker 1: San Marco, the San Marco Square. Yeah. Yeah, And now
4:30
Speaker 1: that you know it's it's gross to see, they're like
4:32
Speaker 1: it tastes briny and sort of ou mommy, right, why
4:37
Speaker 1: are my lips swollen? Yeah, it's uh, it's That's one
4:41
Speaker 1: of many many problems facing Venice right now. An antiquated
4:44
Speaker 1: sewer system, and a lot of the problems are unique
4:48
Speaker 1: just because of the city and how it's created. Yeah,
4:51
Speaker 1: let's talk about this, because Venice is not something I
4:55
Speaker 1: knew a ton about. I knew it was on the water.
4:57
Speaker 1: I knew it was sinking. Shout out by the way
4:59
Speaker 1: to Venice is sinking Athens band and stuff. You should
5:04
Speaker 1: know fans. Um, well, then I like them already, Yes, no,
5:09
Speaker 1: you know those guys he does. In fact, no old
5:12
Speaker 1: talks Jerry doesn't like. Oh yeah, yeah, they're great. He
5:16
Speaker 1: launches into like a five minute discourse. Uh So I
5:19
Speaker 1: knew a little bit about Venice, very little though I've
5:21
Speaker 1: never been there. But when I watched this awesome video
5:24
Speaker 1: that Josh found, Um, we should go ahead and plug
5:27
Speaker 1: it because it's just super cool. Yeah. It's called um
5:31
Speaker 1: Venice Backstage Period, how does Venice work? And it was
5:35
Speaker 1: created by the Insula SPA, which is I guess the
5:39
Speaker 1: production arm of the city of Venice. Yeah, so it's
5:43
Speaker 1: like a locally produced video about Venice. But it's one
5:47
Speaker 1: of the most fascinating, like eighteen minute videos I've ever seen. Yeah,
5:50
Speaker 1: I mean they pack a lot of learning into that
5:53
Speaker 1: eighteen minutes. Um. So if you don't know much about Venice,
5:56
Speaker 1: imagine if you do know something about New York City.
5:58
Speaker 1: Imagine like the Greenwich Village. Uh. And I use Greenwich
6:01
Speaker 1: Village because it's not on like the direct like north
6:04
Speaker 1: southeast West Grida. They got all those crazy diagonal streets.
6:07
Speaker 1: Imagine if it's so hot right now. Yeah, um, imagine
6:14
Speaker 1: Greenwage Village if every block was an island. And that's
6:18
Speaker 1: essentially what Venice is. It is a hundred and twenty
6:23
Speaker 1: four tiny little islands all packed together, and instead of streets,
6:28
Speaker 1: you have water, a hudred and eighty three canals and
6:31
Speaker 1: it's all connected by little foot bridges and real bridges.
6:35
Speaker 1: Uh and yes, canals by boat. Yeah. I mean it's
6:39
Speaker 1: crazy when you've never even seen like the big zoom
6:42
Speaker 1: in from above bird's eye view of what Venice looks like.
6:46
Speaker 1: And I was like, that's what's going on. Yeah, it's
6:48
Speaker 1: crazy because I mean when, especially when you're in the city,
6:50
Speaker 1: like you're walking over canals, but you don't give too
6:53
Speaker 1: much thought to him. You're just like, oh, that's so quaint. Yeah,
6:56
Speaker 1: you're almost thinking like they dug that out on purpose
6:59
Speaker 1: or something to get tourists. Now, those are necessity. It's
7:03
Speaker 1: it's odd. It was an odd and different way for
7:06
Speaker 1: a city. To form. They didn't start from a city
7:09
Speaker 1: center and grow out. Each little block in section was
7:13
Speaker 1: its own little thing. Yeah, it was kind of its
7:15
Speaker 1: own little municipality. Um. And the reason that these people
7:19
Speaker 1: set up shop hundreds and hundreds of years ago on
7:23
Speaker 1: these islands was for for protection. Venice was a very
7:26
Speaker 1: well protected municipality or cluster of municipalities. Right. Yeah. It
7:31
Speaker 1: sits in a lagoon and there are three waterways that
7:37
Speaker 1: flow water in and out every day, twice a day
7:40
Speaker 1: with the tides. Yeah, the Adriatic flows in um to
7:43
Speaker 1: the lagoon and uh brings it out, brings the water
7:46
Speaker 1: back out at low tide, right yeah, yeah, high tide,
7:50
Speaker 1: it brings water in low tide, it takes the water out,
7:52
Speaker 1: which is why they're not that worried about their sewage
7:55
Speaker 1: going into the canals because because the the water comes
7:59
Speaker 1: in and kind of brings all the trash out to
8:01
Speaker 1: the sea and then no one sees it. It's the
8:03
Speaker 1: self a flushing system. Yeah, well, I mean it pretty
8:06
Speaker 1: much is. So that's how they've been able to put
8:08
Speaker 1: up with that for so long because twice a day, um,
8:12
Speaker 1: the waters exchange, there's there is a big exchange to it.
8:15
Speaker 1: The problem is when that water comes in, especially when
8:19
Speaker 1: you include sea level rises and now up to six
8:24
Speaker 1: times more flooding per year. Remember it was like ten
8:27
Speaker 1: times a year and now that's up to about sixty floods. Um,
8:33
Speaker 1: you have kind of a problem. Now you've got the
8:36
Speaker 1: You have a sinking city essentially, is what it's what
8:40
Speaker 1: it amounts to. Yeah, I mean it's it's two things.
8:43
Speaker 1: It's the water rises in Venice itself. The buildings are sinking.
8:48
Speaker 1: So those are two bad things that go, you know,
8:52
Speaker 1: that don't taste great together. The reason that sinking is
8:55
Speaker 1: because they extract freshwater from beneath the city, right, Yeah,
9:00
Speaker 1: so there's less of a solid foundation now and um
9:05
Speaker 1: there's also drilling nearby, like for natural gas or um
9:10
Speaker 1: fossil fuels, and uh, it's also just a roading well, yeah,
9:15
Speaker 1: they've done a lot of things over the year. When
9:17
Speaker 1: you've got seawater lapping up against well, let's step back,
9:20
Speaker 1: it's not just dirt and stuff. They realized pretty early
9:24
Speaker 1: on we're not gonna be around unless we in case,
9:27
Speaker 1: the entire city basically in brick below the waterline, and
9:31
Speaker 1: they came up with some really ingenious construction methods that
9:34
Speaker 1: you can super ingenious in that Venusbeck stage video on Vimeo. Yeah,
9:40
Speaker 1: but even though they have been ensconce to the whole
9:42
Speaker 1: city and brick as a foundation, that's was laughing salt
9:47
Speaker 1: water and it's you know, these canals are busy. It's
9:49
Speaker 1: not just the gondolier singing the song like there. If
9:53
Speaker 1: you see real footage and that movie footage, they're packed
9:56
Speaker 1: with boats, motor boats, cruise ships, all sorts of stuff.
10:00
Speaker 1: And that action creates a lot of movement in the
10:03
Speaker 1: water and it just whittles away at those bricks little
10:06
Speaker 1: by little over the years, over hundreds and hundreds of years,
10:10
Speaker 1: and then that's why Venice is sinking. Um. Part of
10:12
Speaker 1: the other problem too, is a sediment builds up in
10:15
Speaker 1: the canals. They're supposed to close them down on a
10:18
Speaker 1: fairly regular basis, basically damn them up, drain them and
10:22
Speaker 1: then remove the sediment, and basically, um, they stopped doing
10:27
Speaker 1: that as frequently as before, and there there's been a
10:30
Speaker 1: problem as a result. Plus saltwater uh permeates bricks. Bricks
10:35
Speaker 1: are um semipermeable and they have capillary action, so it
10:39
Speaker 1: draws saltwater up into the bricks, which I mean, as
10:43
Speaker 1: long as bricks are connected by mortar, that water, that
10:46
Speaker 1: saltwater will rise all the way to the top of
10:48
Speaker 1: a building. And when the water evaporates, the water is gone,
10:52
Speaker 1: but the salt stays, and it apparently increases in volume
10:55
Speaker 1: tremendously and basically crushes the bricks from the inside out. Yeah,
10:58
Speaker 1: and they've they've been taken steps and measures a little
11:01
Speaker 1: by little in different ways over the years to help.
11:04
Speaker 1: But they're they're kind of fighting a losing battle though,
11:06
Speaker 1: like inject resin into the between the bricks and into
11:09
Speaker 1: the bricks with hydraulics a barrier. But you know, they're fighting,
11:14
Speaker 1: like I said, they're fighting mother nature here, right. So
11:16
Speaker 1: finally they've said, let's turn our attention from these um
11:20
Speaker 1: these piecemeal measures of you know, kind of of treating
11:25
Speaker 1: bricks and go to where the problem is. Let's go
11:29
Speaker 1: to the doorstep of the problem, which is the Adriatic
11:32
Speaker 1: and the three inlets into the lagoon. And they turn
11:36
Speaker 1: their attention to that. And now they've come up with
11:39
Speaker 1: a pretty great plan for dealing with rising tides and floodwaters.
11:44
Speaker 1: And I think we will get to that plan right
11:47
Speaker 1: after this break I knew you're gonna say, all right,
11:53
Speaker 1: so there's a plan. You know one thing on that
11:56
Speaker 1: video too quickly that amazed me. You're talking about the
11:58
Speaker 1: building construction. Um, the walls in Venice. The exterior walls
12:03
Speaker 1: have a tendency to bow out at the top, and
12:07
Speaker 1: uh so they have these these basically hooks that pull
12:12
Speaker 1: from the inside the walls in and then those long
12:16
Speaker 1: metal hooks travel into the floor where they're spiked into
12:19
Speaker 1: the floor. So they're trying to pull it in there.
12:21
Speaker 1: And then the roofs of the buildings in Venice aren't
12:24
Speaker 1: just like hey, let's keep the water out there, literally
12:27
Speaker 1: like caps that locked the walls in at the top.
12:33
Speaker 1: So it's, uh, it's not just like a weather protector roof.
12:37
Speaker 1: It's it's actually like if the roof wasn't there, the
12:39
Speaker 1: walls would bow out. And then the interior walls don't
12:42
Speaker 1: even connect rigidly to the exterior walls. Yeah, it allows
12:45
Speaker 1: some gifts so that they can move back and forth.
12:47
Speaker 1: Is the wave action basically moves the walls. So, I mean,
12:51
Speaker 1: we we're saying Venice is a mess, but it's really
12:54
Speaker 1: an ingenious city of just engineering. The fact that it's
12:58
Speaker 1: still there at all. You know. Another construction point that
13:03
Speaker 1: kind of stuck out to me was that buildings in
13:05
Speaker 1: Venice are built on piles of steaks, like wooden steaks,
13:10
Speaker 1: driven into the ground to kind of reinforce the mucky
13:12
Speaker 1: ground to build on first. It's really a remarkable place
13:16
Speaker 1: when you look at all the things they've had to
13:17
Speaker 1: do just to make that what shouldn't even be a city.
13:21
Speaker 1: I mean, let's let's get real, but it's a very neat,
13:23
Speaker 1: beautiful city. Have you been. You me and I went
13:25
Speaker 1: last summer, and it is gorgeous. Yeah, very neat. Yeah yeah.
13:32
Speaker 1: Just walking around and all of a sudden, you're like, oh,
13:34
Speaker 1: I'm next to three thousand year old ruins just basically
13:37
Speaker 1: part of the cityscape, right, whereas here in Atlanta you're like, oh,
13:40
Speaker 1: there's a Burger king, right, but it's from the sixties exactly, Alright.
13:46
Speaker 1: So we we had a pretty good cliffhanger that they
13:48
Speaker 1: had an idea. So let's we'll go ahead and announce it. Okay, Well,
13:53
Speaker 1: the idea is called mosa or you should do this, chuck,
13:59
Speaker 1: the modulo spadimentale elector electro mechanico. So that's the experimental
14:09
Speaker 1: electro mechanical module. Which is the reason that that has
14:13
Speaker 1: that clumsy name is because the M O S E.
14:17
Speaker 1: The acronym is also the Italian spelling from Mosa or
14:22
Speaker 1: Moses and basically what the what Moses was well known for.
14:26
Speaker 1: One of his many hits was parting the Red Sea. Right, Well,
14:31
Speaker 1: they thought that was very clever hit. They were coming.
14:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, he did a lot of stuff in Commandments.
14:36
Speaker 1: That was a pretty big hit, Burning Bush. I would
14:39
Speaker 1: say the Red Sea was his American pie or no, yeah,
14:44
Speaker 1: that was his Baker Street. The Ten Commandments was his Uh,
14:48
Speaker 1: right down the line, who did Jerry rafferty Baker Street?
14:52
Speaker 1: That was the saxophone one right and right down the
14:56
Speaker 1: lane was his other hit. So I've never heard that one.
14:58
Speaker 1: You have? You just don't know, Okay, says you was
15:01
Speaker 1: just about to bust it out too early. So anyway,
15:05
Speaker 1: Mosa Moses in Italian. Uh, it's a that's a clever
15:09
Speaker 1: use of an acronym because this thing, the contraption they
15:13
Speaker 1: came up with, it's pretty ingenious and clever. To defend
15:18
Speaker 1: against these rising high tides, which are known as aqua
15:20
Speaker 1: alta aqua alta Yeah, and this is one of those
15:24
Speaker 1: things where you say ingenious and clever, but I would
15:27
Speaker 1: add in its simplicity. These are my favorite kinds of projects.
15:31
Speaker 1: When man looks at something and says, well, why don't
15:34
Speaker 1: we just build a big gate? And that's pretty much
15:38
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah, but it is more complicated than that.
15:41
Speaker 1: And let's let's talk about the mosa So. Um. Remember
15:44
Speaker 1: we said sea levels are rising in general, but high
15:47
Speaker 1: tides are a really big problem in Venice because they're
15:51
Speaker 1: getting higher. Um. So the Mosai project, uh is it
15:56
Speaker 1: consists of a bunch of gates that can be broad
16:00
Speaker 1: up and raised on command. They have a magician who
16:04
Speaker 1: commands the gates to rise, and um, the gates come
16:09
Speaker 1: up and basically separate the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea. Yeah.
16:14
Speaker 1: So imagine a big, huge steel door that lays flat
16:18
Speaker 1: on the bottom of the ocean, and uh, they fill
16:23
Speaker 1: it with air and it's got two hinges on one side,
16:26
Speaker 1: So that big steel door just raises up as it
16:29
Speaker 1: fills with air, obviously becoming more buoyant, and until it
16:33
Speaker 1: looks like about a forty five degree angle, uh, facing
16:36
Speaker 1: out into the sea away from the city. And that's it.
16:41
Speaker 1: It's just a barrier. It just swings up and I
16:44
Speaker 1: think there's about a two foot differential in the water levels.
16:47
Speaker 1: And uh, it essentially prevents high tide from happening within
16:52
Speaker 1: the Venice Lagoon. That's exactly right. And um, these these
16:57
Speaker 1: basically walls, floating walls is what they amount to. Like
17:00
Speaker 1: you said, they have hinges on the bottom. Uh. And
17:03
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of pictures of the Mose project, the
17:06
Speaker 1: mosa A project, um, all over the internet. I found
17:09
Speaker 1: it exponentially easier to understand when I saw what they
17:14
Speaker 1: were talking about. It's like, oh, that's all it is.
17:17
Speaker 1: But allow us to clumsily try to get this across.
17:22
Speaker 1: So you've got the hinges, um hinge, the metal wall
17:26
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the sea floor right, well, not
17:28
Speaker 1: to the sea floor, well to a concrete trench within
17:32
Speaker 1: the sea floor that the thing sits in when it's
17:34
Speaker 1: not in use. Yeah, they tried to pound it right
17:36
Speaker 1: into the sand and they were like, it's not a
17:38
Speaker 1: working right, get us some concrete. So they these trenches
17:43
Speaker 1: also provide a place for engineers to go underneath and
17:46
Speaker 1: basically fix things and fiddle with stuff. And it also
17:49
Speaker 1: provides the delivery system for the compressed air that the
17:53
Speaker 1: hollow metal walls gates basically um fill up with air
17:58
Speaker 1: so that they start to stand upright, Yeah, And how
18:00
Speaker 1: long does that take? Like twenty minutes or thirty minutes,
18:03
Speaker 1: and then uh, it takes about the same time for
18:06
Speaker 1: it to fill them with seawater again to return them
18:08
Speaker 1: back to their laying position on the floor. It was
18:11
Speaker 1: a little quicker going down, but which makes sense. Yes,
18:14
Speaker 1: but that's pretty much it. When the high tides coming,
18:17
Speaker 1: they fill them with air so that the gates stand
18:19
Speaker 1: up above water. And then on the lagoon side, the
18:22
Speaker 1: sea level stays low. On the sea side, it can
18:25
Speaker 1: get as high as it likes. And because they're hinged
18:28
Speaker 1: and filled with air, they're not rigid, which means that
18:31
Speaker 1: they can take a pounding and they can sway back
18:34
Speaker 1: and forth a little bit and still not give. So
18:37
Speaker 1: it is, like you said, it's it's ingenious in its simplicity.
18:41
Speaker 1: It is and it's uh officially launched in two thousand three,
18:44
Speaker 1: and that was and this was after years and years
18:46
Speaker 1: of um I guess ideas and bids and plans, and
18:53
Speaker 1: the Mosai project is what finally went out. They said
18:56
Speaker 1: it was gonna be two to three billion dollars and
18:59
Speaker 1: would be on Uh it's still not done. They're looking
19:04
Speaker 1: at now. Um. They did the first successful test late
19:07
Speaker 1: last year, and like with every big project, city project
19:11
Speaker 1: like that, it's going to be over budget and over
19:13
Speaker 1: uh schedule. Yes, but there's a lot of accusations of corruption.
19:18
Speaker 1: Really yeah, Southern Italy a big public project, so corrupt.
19:23
Speaker 1: The the group that suggested the thing in the first
19:26
Speaker 1: place is called the you want to take it? Someone's
19:29
Speaker 1: gonna be offended by me, by the way. Maybe I'll
19:33
Speaker 1: bet they're not Italian. The Consortio then no EVA, So
19:39
Speaker 1: that's basically the new Venice Consortium. It's a group of
19:43
Speaker 1: companies and construction companies that said, hey, we've got an
19:46
Speaker 1: idea for this problem. Let's try this. Yeah, and we'll
19:49
Speaker 1: build it for you. We had all the companies under
19:52
Speaker 1: our banner that can provide everything you need, and they said,
19:56
Speaker 1: we'll build it for you for two to three billion
19:58
Speaker 1: dollars and every but you want what which sounds like
20:02
Speaker 1: a lot, including to people in Venice, is that American
20:05
Speaker 1: dollars or is that euros? That's American dollars As far
20:08
Speaker 1: as I'm seeing right here. Um, but if you go
20:12
Speaker 1: to Venice like uh, martinis like fifteen dollars, it's like
20:18
Speaker 1: twenty or five bucks for like a little tiny martini
20:21
Speaker 1: at Harry's Bar. I know. So it sounds like a lot,
20:25
Speaker 1: But all you have to do is go open the
20:27
Speaker 1: cash register at Harry's Bar in a Tuesday afternoon and
20:29
Speaker 1: you can get two to three billion dollars to pay
20:31
Speaker 1: for this project. You know, Alright, someone's a little salty
20:35
Speaker 1: about their business. It was really expensive. It was neat,
20:39
Speaker 1: but it's also like really expensive. Epe is not cheap. No. Um.
20:44
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of a lot of accusations
20:47
Speaker 1: of corruption, of kickbacks, the other thing being artificially expensive.
20:53
Speaker 1: Apparently there was a study that found like this thing is,
20:56
Speaker 1: they've padded this tremendously. But by the time this came
21:00
Speaker 1: amount um public opinion apparently wasn't enough to stop at
21:03
Speaker 1: construction had started. They did their first test in two
21:06
Speaker 1: dozen twelve apparently was successful. And the Mosai project continues,
21:11
Speaker 1: and I believe they're they're tracking for two thousand sixteen
21:15
Speaker 1: to have all of the gates across all three of
21:18
Speaker 1: the inlets operational. Yeah, and you said multiple gates. So
21:23
Speaker 1: each of these uh inlets. You have the Leado, uh,
21:26
Speaker 1: the Malamoco, and then I pronounce this Cheogia, but I
21:31
Speaker 1: heard it much much differently on the video, so I
21:34
Speaker 1: know that's not right. But those are the three inlets,
21:37
Speaker 1: and um, well that was a British student. They just
21:39
Speaker 1: pronounced things however they want, and then we assume because
21:43
Speaker 1: they're European they know you're right. Uh. So it's not
21:47
Speaker 1: like one big gate for each of these things because
21:49
Speaker 1: it's on a curve and you can't just have one
21:51
Speaker 1: huge gate. So the um, the Malamoco and the Cheogia
21:57
Speaker 1: have Uh, the Malamoco is nineteen gate, that g has eighteen,
22:01
Speaker 1: and they're all in one row. And then the big daddy,
22:03
Speaker 1: the Leado has two rows, one with twenty gates and
22:07
Speaker 1: with one gates. Yeah, and we're not all the same
22:09
Speaker 1: same they're the same width, but they're not all the
22:11
Speaker 1: same height, right, And I mean they don't need to
22:15
Speaker 1: be summer taller than others. They're all about sixteen ft thick.
22:19
Speaker 1: So these are huge, huge walled gates. So yeah, I
22:23
Speaker 1: think we should I don't know if we've gotten across
22:25
Speaker 1: how big they are you said there's sixteen ft or
22:27
Speaker 1: about five meters thick. Um, they're the the deepest amount
22:34
Speaker 1: of water is a hundred feet, which is like thirty meters. Uh,
22:39
Speaker 1: so these things are taller than that or if need be. Yeah,
22:43
Speaker 1: uh and then they're uh what about three d and
22:46
Speaker 1: fifty tons. I think that's just for like one of
22:50
Speaker 1: the gates. Yes, like one single panel could weighs as
22:54
Speaker 1: much as a seven thirty seven seven seven And they
22:59
Speaker 1: they are using something that Rolls Royce makes that is
23:03
Speaker 1: basically an elevator for ships to convey each of the
23:06
Speaker 1: gates out to the sea floor. Yeah. And it takes
23:10
Speaker 1: three days to move a gate. Yeah. So they're really
23:13
Speaker 1: really big gates, but they are going to be very
23:16
Speaker 1: nimble when filled with compressed air and smacked around by waves.
23:20
Speaker 1: Plus they're in water, so that helps with the weight.
23:23
Speaker 1: That reminds me that this project faces a lot of
23:25
Speaker 1: problems that that the project faces. So there's there's some
23:29
Speaker 1: people have said, maybe this is a good idea in theory,
23:32
Speaker 1: but practically this may or may not work. What it's
23:35
Speaker 1: sea levels rise faster than we think, then these things
23:38
Speaker 1: are going to basically be very expensive, totally obsolete gates,
23:43
Speaker 1: like the water would just go right over the top
23:45
Speaker 1: of the exactly. That's a nightmare scenario. Yeah that when
23:49
Speaker 1: I when I saw what I saw, it didn't look
23:52
Speaker 1: like to me they came out of the water enough.
23:53
Speaker 1: I was like, I would add another five feet. Yeah,
23:56
Speaker 1: just to be safe, Just to be safe, you know. Um,
23:59
Speaker 1: So that's one possible problem. Another one that apparently they
24:03
Speaker 1: haven't addressed is the build up a sediment. Remember we
24:05
Speaker 1: said that you have to clean out the canals pretty
24:08
Speaker 1: frequently because sediment builds up backs up septic systems, that
24:12
Speaker 1: crumbles brick walls. Well, it will also fill in these trenches,
24:16
Speaker 1: which apparently need to be totally flat, and as sediment
24:20
Speaker 1: builds up, then these things aren't going to lay flat again,
24:24
Speaker 1: and you may have some problems. Apparently that's something that
24:26
Speaker 1: hasn't been addressed by the Mosai project. How to deal
24:30
Speaker 1: with sediment build up. Well, I know they've got about
24:33
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty people that will just be full
24:35
Speaker 1: time caretaking staff. Uh, And I guess part of their
24:40
Speaker 1: job will be to clean that stuff up. Huh. I
24:43
Speaker 1: would guess. Uh. And some of the other problems. Um,
24:46
Speaker 1: anytime you're undertaking a project like this has to interact
24:50
Speaker 1: with the elements and mother nature, they're going to be
24:54
Speaker 1: environmental concerns and uh. They range the spectrum here from
25:01
Speaker 1: we don't really know how this is going to affect things,
25:05
Speaker 1: uh and disrupt the ecosystem too. Well, wait a minute,
25:08
Speaker 1: we need this constant flow in and out of water
25:12
Speaker 1: twice a day two flush our giant toilet that we're
25:16
Speaker 1: living in, right Uh. And proponents will say it's gonna
25:20
Speaker 1: be better actually because and it sort of makes sense
25:24
Speaker 1: if there's, um, if you have three holes going into
25:30
Speaker 1: something and you plug up two of them, you're gonna
25:32
Speaker 1: have a stronger flow in the one hole, right exactly.
25:34
Speaker 1: So they're saying, we can actually use this to manipulate
25:37
Speaker 1: this flow of water artificially and make a better toilet
25:40
Speaker 1: flusher exactly. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that Hopefully the
25:44
Speaker 1: ones who are like, well, but why don't we just
25:46
Speaker 1: use this as a an opportunity to update our septic
25:50
Speaker 1: system as a whole or sewer system as a whole,
25:53
Speaker 1: Hopefully those guys will win out. But pollution, increased pollution
25:56
Speaker 1: levels are definitely an issue that environmentalists are looking at.
26:00
Speaker 1: And uh, I just get the picture in southern Italy.
26:02
Speaker 1: It's a tough Uh, it's tough game, you know. It
26:07
Speaker 1: seems to be a lot of fighting. Like this is
26:08
Speaker 1: a very controversial project, but it still remains so Yeah,
26:12
Speaker 1: and it seems to be marching on. They they One
26:15
Speaker 1: of the other criticisms was that they they basically just
26:18
Speaker 1: ignored easier, less expensive options that have proven effective elsewhere
26:26
Speaker 1: the Netherlands. Yeah, are like building barrier islands, underwater dikes.
26:31
Speaker 1: But although apparently they have a lot of this stuff
26:33
Speaker 1: already and it's not necessarily helping. It's mainly just reinforcing
26:38
Speaker 1: the natural um barriers that already exist. I guess they're like,
26:44
Speaker 1: why don't we just put up more of that? Yeah,
26:46
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting to Uh, it's gonna be interesting
26:49
Speaker 1: to see how this plays out. I really hope it works,
26:52
Speaker 1: because they've sunk a lot of money into this and
26:54
Speaker 1: they I mean, they moved all in on this mosa system.
26:59
Speaker 1: Like they can't wrap it and say, well, it didn't work,
27:01
Speaker 1: Let's think of something new. Yeah, And I wonder how
27:05
Speaker 1: how much it would be to just like that. You
27:07
Speaker 1: can't just add a new gate, a new taller gate.
27:11
Speaker 1: If the sea levels do rise faster, and they these
27:14
Speaker 1: these the ones they have proved too short because it
27:17
Speaker 1: has to sit flush in the trench. So you'd have
27:20
Speaker 1: to create a whole another trench to accommodate this larger
27:23
Speaker 1: gate would be a real problem. That's the worst case
27:26
Speaker 1: scenario to me is if it's uh yeah, if they're
27:29
Speaker 1: too short, the water lefts and surely they thought of that.
27:33
Speaker 1: It didn't look right to me. But they know what
27:34
Speaker 1: they're doing, right, I hope, so pretty neat and hopefully
27:39
Speaker 1: you know, they had all this in that that great video,
27:41
Speaker 1: a lot of footage where it looked like it looked
27:43
Speaker 1: like some parts of Venice on a daily basis with
27:46
Speaker 1: high tide is slightly underwater. Yeah. They to show people
27:49
Speaker 1: walking to work through water and delivering stuff to places
27:52
Speaker 1: through water, and and everyone looks very sick of it. Yeah.
27:56
Speaker 1: Go check out um on vimeo Venice x stage. Uh,
28:01
Speaker 1: that is definitely worth watching. Venice backstage period. How does
28:05
Speaker 1: Venice work? I think they meant to put a cole
28:07
Speaker 1: in there. The period bugs me a period in a
28:09
Speaker 1: title dif from England. Josh, No, these are the Venetians
28:13
Speaker 1: that made this diffrom Venice, Josh um, they know what
28:16
Speaker 1: they're doing. Yeah, and check out stuff on the MOSE
28:19
Speaker 1: project Mose Mose. I just want to say, moves from
28:24
Speaker 1: Paper Moon your favorite movie, right boom uh. And if
28:29
Speaker 1: you want to learn even more about the MOSE project,
28:31
Speaker 1: you can type in m O s E Project in
28:34
Speaker 1: the search bar how stuff works dot Com and that
28:36
Speaker 1: will bring up this article. Yeah, and hey, check out
28:39
Speaker 1: Venice is sinking from Appens, Georgia. Yeah, that's nice. My
28:42
Speaker 1: one buddy is no longer in the band, but you're
28:45
Speaker 1: still friendly with the other guys. They haven't been in
28:48
Speaker 1: touch actually, but they said they said record and they're
28:53
Speaker 1: good folks. Well, and if you ever get a chance
28:55
Speaker 1: to go to Venice, I recommend you do it because
28:58
Speaker 1: it is in Neat Town. But don't go to Harry's Bar.
29:01
Speaker 1: You have to go to Harry's Bar. Is that the
29:02
Speaker 1: legendary place, that's where the Bellini was created? Why didn't
29:06
Speaker 1: you have a Bellii? She had a Billiini? I had
29:10
Speaker 1: a Martini? What a Bellinis? A peach juice, peach pure
29:14
Speaker 1: in champagne. Very good, but again it's like basically a
29:19
Speaker 1: shot for I think it was like twenty five dollars
29:22
Speaker 1: or maybe even more. Yeah, but you have to you
29:25
Speaker 1: have to go. You walk past the seat that Hemingway
29:27
Speaker 1: used to drink at, right, you know it's a neat place. Yeah,
29:31
Speaker 1: there's a lot of those seats around the world, though,
29:33
Speaker 1: you know, find a cheaper one. I think we already
29:37
Speaker 1: went through the whole rigamar role that leads us up
29:39
Speaker 1: to listener mail. So now it's time for listener mail.
29:44
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this murderer in our myth midst murder
29:51
Speaker 1: the mist you're thinking of guerrillas in the Midst. Hey,
29:56
Speaker 1: guys have a boring job. So I binge listen. Uh
29:58
Speaker 1: several days a week to your show. Was listening to
30:00
Speaker 1: the Insanity Defense episode and I heard a very familiar name.
30:04
Speaker 1: I happened to have met John Delling during his killing spree.
30:08
Speaker 1: I used to manage a coffee shop and a guy
30:10
Speaker 1: was oddly peering in the window with his hand pressed
30:13
Speaker 1: against the glass though the store was clearly open. Uh.
30:17
Speaker 1: He paced around the building for a while. I thought
30:19
Speaker 1: it was pretty weird, so I sent the girl working
30:21
Speaker 1: with me pretty brave. If you Josh, his name is
30:25
Speaker 1: Josh Okay. I sent the girl working with me in
30:29
Speaker 1: the back. Oh, no, okay, I take it all back.
30:33
Speaker 1: He was trying to protect her, and that was me.
30:36
Speaker 1: I sent her in the back and told her to
30:37
Speaker 1: hang out there until he left. He came in, looked
30:39
Speaker 1: the menu over and asked where ice cream was any good?
30:41
Speaker 1: I gave him a free sample. Here you go, we
30:45
Speaker 1: don't want any trouble. He liked it. He liked it
30:48
Speaker 1: and said he had to go to his car to
30:49
Speaker 1: get some money. He literally said, I'll be right back.
30:51
Speaker 1: Then he went out to his car for a while
30:53
Speaker 1: and drove away. A couple of days later, the girl
30:55
Speaker 1: I was working with that night called crying and told
30:58
Speaker 1: me to find a newspaper. Well, no wonder he sent
31:01
Speaker 1: it back. She's clearly fragile. She's crying that like the
31:04
Speaker 1: guy was at the front door. She seen that Sunday
31:07
Speaker 1: New York Times is six dollars now. On the front
31:11
Speaker 1: page was a large mug shot of our guy from
31:13
Speaker 1: a couple of nights previous. Turns out he had actually
31:15
Speaker 1: left the store and murdered someone and um because the
31:19
Speaker 1: ice cream drove him. No, I guess so, and he
31:21
Speaker 1: stole something. I sold her car that same evening. Anyway,
31:25
Speaker 1: just thought it was an interesting connection. The guy was
31:27
Speaker 1: definitely in need of some help, and, as you mentioned,
31:29
Speaker 1: had no shot at getting it in the legal system
31:31
Speaker 1: here in Idaho is clearly a tricky ethical area. Thanks everybody.
31:36
Speaker 1: And then it's from Josh knowl that's from way back
31:39
Speaker 1: kind of the insanity defense. Yeah, that was a good one,
31:41
Speaker 1: though it turned out we learned a lot. So he
31:44
Speaker 1: fed a guy ice cream anyone out and killed someone. Man,
31:47
Speaker 1: is really scary stuff. And his coworker, who was around
31:51
Speaker 1: for none of it, cried when she read the paper. Yeah,
31:53
Speaker 1: apparently she never got any work done because anytime a
31:56
Speaker 1: customer came in, she gets sent to the back, you know,
32:01
Speaker 1: uh crazy. What was the dude's name? Josh and Hole?
32:04
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Josh. Thanks Josh. It's always good to hear
32:06
Speaker 1: from another Josh, because we are the greatest names on
32:09
Speaker 1: the planet. Josh. That's such a great name. It is,
32:13
Speaker 1: especially if you say it in other ways like yosh
32:17
Speaker 1: or hush. There's all sorts of ways you can say Josh,
32:20
Speaker 1: but really the only right way to say it is Josh.
32:22
Speaker 1: And it's a verb. Yeah, you can Josh and it's
32:25
Speaker 1: a it's a friendly verb too, because you're making fun
32:28
Speaker 1: of somebody, but in a non hostile way. Yeah, chuck
32:31
Speaker 1: is a verb too, how about that? Yeah, look at us, right,
32:34
Speaker 1: Josh and chucking. Yeah, that's good stuff. Chuck. I can't
32:37
Speaker 1: believe it's taking us this many years to come up
32:39
Speaker 1: with that. If you want to tell us to shut up,
32:43
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast.
32:46
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash stuff
32:49
Speaker 1: you Should Know, drop us a line via email at
32:51
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32:55
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32:59
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33:02
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33:05
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33:08
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33:12
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33:20
Speaker 1: is it how stuff Works dot com.