The store radioactive and scientist of the Mysteries 
Termoli. As a thriller, the story of Quentin De Notariis radioactive deposit and inherited by the state following his sudden death in Cuba ( see the first episode ) is a tightly woven secrets and questions from chills.
The first mystery connected via the basement of Building No. 6, Castelmauro, is a simple question of numbers. How many are really the drums of radioactive and toxic and harmful stacked in the basement of a nuclear physicist? are officially less than two thousand and contain isotopes such as cobalt 60, americium 241, carbon 14, phosphorus 32, technetium. Delicate and dangerous stuff to handle, which - officially - was transferred to the stable between 80 and 87, when the deposit has run out of space. In truth the spaces are saturated almost immediately so that - we learn to register - De Notariis bought from neighbors a couple of places to place a satellite into some of 1833 drums. The number is supplied by him on December 27, 1994, 14 years after moving into the basement. Why so late? Answer bleak because no one, until then, had asked to inspect the records of loading and unloading. He did, however, Dr. Mario Paganini Fioratti, Enea an inspector who had to suffer not a little to get a complete list of the bins, and that during the visit of '94, although he requested "papers", he was told by De Notariis that the "computer operating system does not work." The list, unsolicited, came a few weeks later: A list of 35 pages that discusses the contents of the drums. Drums but no one has ever counted them one by one. For another inspector Enea, Candela Cyrus, who had inspected the cellar few years earlier, they are 'about 4000'.
Too many to stay inside in safety. In fact, for Candela "deposit is not suitable." Not only that. How and by whom were brought to the drums? Another question that is not a reassuring answer. Residents of Castelmauro agree in reporting a version that makes his skin crawl: "The relocation took place at night, especially in the first period. Came the white Ford Transit driven by a factotum De Notariis and discharged. " Still officially removals took place between 80 and 87. And 'the scientist to put pen to paper late in his report: "123 loading, the first on June 16 and last 80 on April 27, 87." But what has happened before and after these dates, it's a secret buried in the tomb. But if
Quintino De Notariis can no longer speak, someone else, but he recalls. Although many years have passed, and "now, what can you do more?". Pasquale (we omit the surname to avoid discomfort) is an elderly farmer, who lives with his wife in a rural district of isolated. She has bad legs, but still driving the tractor and has a clear mind. In the past it was the tenant of Livio De Notariis, father of Quentin (who married the daughter). We meet in the country, in front of the farmhouse, and is baffled by this interest in one thing "that no one came to ask me in thirty years."
His story is shocking . This was reported as we have heard:
I do not remember exactly what year it happened, but it was the early 80's, because the mayor was Castelmauro Molitiello, who later died and was replaced by Deputy Mayor John De Notariis. At that time of these radioactive drums turned it around here several . I've seen many, both full and empty, some of them I have also loaded on the tractor for movement from one farm to another. I did not know that stuff was dangerous, I realized only many years later when there was talk of the deposit in the basement and there was controversy in the country. And only then did the link, and I remembered those fires that were lit day and night front of the house of Livy, that Quentin often frequented, and I figured that had something to do with harmful stuff. "
The farmer, who cultivated the land at the time of Livy, tells of a theft, "A night they went to steal from Livy, in a farmhouse near the uninhabited house. They took a shotgun, and he made the complaint. The next day he came to me and told me that the police had to do an inspection for the theft, and that I should help him carry off the stems of Gender. I did not ask another, he was the master and in those days you just obeyed. " So Pasquale loaded on the tractor churns' blue, yellow with a propeller and some numbers on it, " and moved them from one farm to another to prevent the police discovered them. It is not over. "During this time, Livio was angry because I had to dry the zucchini. I replied that no There was water, and he told me to take andarmela the well. Arriving there he showed me several blue barrels, more than the numbers above, empty. Because of my carboys were more spacious, I had them filled with water and I took them home . No, Pasquale did not use that water for drinking, for luck. " They drink the cows, however, and some have died after two days, do not know why. How should I know? I just knew that the rusted cans in contact with water, and I have not used any more. " Evidence that is telling the truth is a few tens of meters. Under a fig , hidden among scrap metal and agricultural implements in use, there are still carcasses drums Quentin De Notariis . The blue enamel is unmistakable, despite signs of rust and weather. With its gruesome question: if there are empty containers, where is the content?
One idea on the supplies, inadvertently, the very elderly farmer when still in his story focuses on a different mystery: 'An excavation in front of the house of Livy, in that period. The night I saw the hole just made by bulldozer. The next morning, approaching to bring cheese and fruit, had been filled. Livio explained it was a thing of the son (Quentin, ed) and that he did not know much. " The person who carries out the excavation at that time is alive and well, still lives in Castelmauro and still driving trucks and bulldozers to work. It confirms, "Yes, I did the digging, an afternoon, but I do not know what he should serve. No, I have not closed the hole in the ground. I do not know who did it. "
controversial figure, Quintino De Notariis , founded in 1943 by a wealthy family in Castelmauro a degree in nuclear physics at the University of Bologna, specializing in radiation protection since 1970. hated by his countrymen , who rebuked him for having caused damage to the country and "have enriched our skin." So much so that Castelmauro in recent years there was just more, and 'guarding' the deposit from Termoli, a city where he lived and worked when it was in Cuba, where he and a group of friends and fans that they even celebrated an anniversary public. Character always talked and always linked to politics. It 'was the founder of the Circle of Termoli Aspe, linked to the National Alliance, and in '94 it is also proposed to the Senate for Molise.
In May founded in 1979, Termoli, the Canrc . Echo left an acronym which stands for Nuclear Radiation Center Applications and Controls. It 's a sole proprietorship engaged in "Health Physics, dosimetry, environmental radioactivity and removal of radioactive waste from medical, scientific and industrial research."
The definition is the same scientist, who describes his laboratory inspector Enea Cyrus Candle in 1987, during an inspection. At Canrc that despite the death of the physicist is still active and in good financial health, is linked to another yellow. Why not refer anyone, in the file room of Commerce, the deposit Castelmauro? There is no trace of the structure drums full of waste, just as if it never existed. Still the "dump" has been there for 25 years, the subject of a dispute with its lacerating and secrets still untouched .
Over all, a. A walled room, inaccessible to all four sides . He speaks of Dr. De Cristofaro, physical Crr-Pmip, which in 1995 is a joint inspection with the Digos of Campobasso. Cristofaro is very hard in science and now poses several questions: "Why were detained without drums for 15 years for their effective disposal? Because the authorization request submitted by the owner in '79 did not specify the content of radioactive isotopes? Why in the authorization request is never spoken of deposit, but only generically detention for the purpose of calibration sources? ". Questions whose answers are entrusted to the trial of Molise. The inspector accuses "the light shown by the Authority, which creates confusion," and then fires a sort of "bomb", as well as previously ignored in the years to come.
"During the inspection - writes Cristofaro - has been ascertained that there is a completely walled, strangely not highlighted in the most recent inspection (July '95, ed) PNA Rome. The nature of the drums stored in that room is probably unknown and unreported ...».
the location exists, as can be seen from the photos that we managed to shoot from a crack in the wall that will block access. E 'inaccessible from all four sides. You can see the top of a sort of closed box, made of plaster boards and beams of iron nails. What's there? Why, with the exception of Digos, no one has ever noticed?
Probably because before that date - the '95 - did not exist. A mason Castelmauro, we approached him, said: "Ten years ago more or less I was contacted on behalf of Quentin De Notariis. I was asked to do the work in the cellar, but I refused because I was scared by this history of radioactive waste. " The man, who had previously worked on the first floor of the house in Via Palazzo, is that "once I was there, drums came from Naples, and I gathered that there was a traffic of stuff from which it was better to stay away . So I tell Quentin that I had other commitments, and from what I know he spoke to some workers outside. " A Another mystery, in fact. That it is possible to be connected to a singular coincidence. Just a fact in '95 radiometric found that around the cellar radioactive values \u200b\u200bwere normal or nearly so, "while the floor above the value of expansion is found in 20 to 40 times the background value. .. '. Why such a difference? Why should the floor be contaminated more of the cellar? Perhaps because the floor under a radioactive source was more intense than the others, and more dangerous?
That walled room, however, concerned not just Dr. Cristofaro, which asks whether in the store are no radioactive sources used in lightning and smoke detectors . Why do you say? Because at that time, the Crr did a survey on the strangest and most unlikely means of disposal and concealment of this dangerous material ", and the expert suggests a possible link. It does not end here. The physicist in charge of the survey also points two episodes age that matters so much anxiety. The first: During the disposal operation of the safe containing Radium-226 (highly radioactive material) found in the wall of the Cardarelli Hospital of Campobasso (with whom De Notariis had a contractual relationship since 1985), the technicians had discovered that were missing 95 mg material.
The second episode is even more alarming: in the boiler room of the swimming pool in Campobasso is returned to a drum containing filters for air conditioning with radiocesium from the Chernobyl reactor . That has to do with Quentin De Notariis? Centra, because the stem is the word "Nuclear radiation CANRC Center Applications and Controls". Cristofaro E can not ask: "Why was there so long and left with all the risks involved?".
The question remains standing today. It is not the only one that casts a dark shadow on the history of science and its ambiguous activities. a profitable business: the physically participated in tenders for the disposal of radioactive waste, but has not spent any money in disposal. Profitable and irregular : the scientist had authorized the detention and disposal of radioactive waste, and no authorization for the toxic waste novice, although manipulated. In spite of the laws, precautions, relying on a couple of unsuspecting workers. An activity carried on outside the rules and of any control, as evidenced by the presence of drums abandoned in the fields before the 'official storage' began. An activity full of secrets, such as local walled away in the basement of the palace. And doubt what he has won with such a system Dr. De Notariis?
"I worked at a loss for the good of the territory," he writes in his memoirs of the 2000 trial, pointing out the alleged political persecution in place against him.
"What chutzpah" replicated in the country, where persistent rumors on the amounts collected from the physicist millionaire who loved women and the pleasures of life and left his fellow citizens one last puzzle. 'It died in a resort in Cuba, but none of the relatives took the plane to identify the body. The coffin is back after 20 days in Termoli, sealed and without window. What to think? "A Castelmauro, where reality and fiction is like, think of all the people. And some even think that the scientist in question is are enjoying the sun and an offshore account on some Caribbean island. Legends of the country without any foundation, of course. But remember that say a lot about the 64 years age classes mocking left here.
Link here , here and q ui .
