"No one can sing who has smog in his throat" [The Lorax]

"It snowed!" Throwing open our deck window, Maddy shouted back to us, with a big smile on her face. We all went to the window, and, indeed, a white dust covered our bike and apartment building. Later, as we walked downtown, we found the sight of Mantova's historic buildings to be at once magical and planned. The white dust covered everything so perfectly, a skilled painter could not have made a winter scape more beautiful or serene.

The next day, when reading our daily paper [I use google translate to translate the paper into English for me: a useful tool when you do not know past-tense Italian] I was shocked to see that the "snow" was not real snow. What had fallen so softly on our little town was "chemical snow," a rare occurrence that happens when the pollutants in the air are so dense that when the temperature drops, the pollution freezes, causing snow-like crystals. While pretty enough, it is toxic chemical particulate, and if you want to build a snowman with it, you best bring your latex gloves.

That Mantova is polluted is not news to us. A month into living here we discovered that the water is not safe to drink: it is filled with arsenic and other nasty compounds.  In fact, the water is so filled with toxins that we have taken to boiling our pasta and making our rice in bottled water, the plastic bottles piling up in our house.  While we recycle the bottles twice a week, it doesn't take much thought to consider that using bottled water compounds the very reason we need bottled water in the first place. Still, I am not going to serve my kids arsenic soup, so we are stuck, and hope that these bottles are indeed being recycled, and not just dumped somewhere to rot. [I have since been told that the water is fine here, and it is below us where the water is very polluted. It goes to show me how hard it is to understand everything in a community when you do not speak the language.]

Mantova lies in the Po Valley, which is the most polluted area in Italy. Due to mountain ranges around it, bad air from all over gets trapped in this corridor, and remains. Mantova compounds the bad air around it by allowing crude oil to be manufactured immediately outside of town:  the crude oil is processed in an old refinery, and smoke billows from the stacks day and night. When the wind is blowing toward Mantova, all the refinery particulate is pushed over the little city, causing a dark cloud of pollution that is so thick it can easily be seen from space.

The extent of the pollution here was a huge surprise to us, since we picked Mantova as our home base for the year in part because in 2005 it won the "most livable city" in Italy award. Among the factors considered for this award were green space, public transportation, walk-ability, water and air quality. Sometimes we laugh about the ridiculousness of that award, other times we are ready to flee to a neighboring town for our remaining five months. Mostly, we are very surprised that the Italians here are not taking to the streets, calling for action and change, After all, childhood cancer rates and breathing-related hospital admissions are five times higher in Mantova than in the surrounding Lombardia region, and it is not a secret.  Even in day-to-day those of us living in Mantova are reminded of the pollution dangers: when we had our chemical snow, it was recommended that children stay inside, or at least severely limit physical excursion outside.  I am now checking air quality before venturing outside with the kids, looking at particulate rates like a day-trader follows the stock exchange.

Living in Missoula, Montana and Amherst, Massachusetts, I have had many years benefiting from my activist friends -- friends whose life work is saving wild animals, cleaning streams and rivers, keeping chemical cleaners out of homes, and more. For me, the presence of environmentalists keeping a check on industry and government was a job as normal and needed in our society and lawyers, doctors, and teachers, and I took them--and their work--for granted. Living here is a stark reminder of what can happen without people who are watching-out for, writing about, and advocating for earth's gifts.  There is a bumper sticker in Missoula I have seen asking, "Have you hugged an environmentalist today?" When I get home to our clean air and water, it will be a love-fest on my part.

There is a new group in town, Mantova Mothers, that is trying to get out the word about the air and water here in Mantova, and to bring change. It is an uphill battle to fight, no doubt, and it is a small group; still, a glimmer of hope. Lovely Mantova, whose long existence as a city has always been about power and wars, may have its hardest fight for survival yet.

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Ed.'s note, Feb. 15: It has since been reported in the local paper that the snow does not carry dangerous amounts of chemicals in the snow, and is not considered "toxic".