Can 'Moses' Part the Adriatic Sea?

"[MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico (or MOSES)] is the most stupendous nature-challenging effort that has taken place [in Venice] since the Italians first fled the Barbarian-colonized dry land to raise palaces here in the 700s. [Its] acronym is as overcooked as its budget of $7-billion, its timeline of 30 years or its ambition of defying nature and stopping the tides. For most Venetians, who have long since accepted their city's becoming a theme park-cum-museum as its only path to salvation, its 2011 completion date cannot come soon enough.

For other Venetians, deeply wary of anything that touches their ancient ways and equally distrustful of anything coming from the government of Italy (which many here still see as a foreign country), nothing good can come of it. Strolling the back pathways and bridges of Venice, you'll see the graffito "No MOSE" painted on walls. In the view of Mayor Massimo Cacciari, a rumpled philosopher given to fistfights with his less co-operative constituents, the whole thing is a conspiracy to destroy the purity of his city and turn the lagoon into a stinking toilet. Or, rather, into more of a toilet.

For visitors, this is your chance to witness an experiment that may define the next century. Moses is a grand effort to regulate the tides entering the lagoon, by building enormous air-driven floating valves that can stop the water while allowing the largest container ships, up to 70 metres wide, to pass through a huge system of locks.

'This is your only chance to see the beauty of this construction,' chief engineer Alberto Scotti says. 'After it is finished, it will be completely invisible, except the few times of year when it is operating, when all you will see is the mysterious sight of the water being higher on one side and lower on the other.' All the works will be buried beneath the waves. Mr. Scotti notes that there is a deep dilemma behind his project: It must not interfere with the natural environment, in a place whose entire 'nature,' from the shape of the lagoon to the flow of the rivers, was created by humans. It is a triumph of humanity over the cruelty of nature – that is the greatness of Venice, and if it works, it'll be the charm of Moses.

The world is suddenly very interested in this project. The government of New Orleans has paid it a visit. And over the summer, the government of Singapore announced that it would start working on an even larger project, designed to protect the city state from any foreseeable rise in water – and Moses is their model. (Moses is meant to protect Venice from a permanent 60 cm sea-level rise as well as a three-metre flood, while still allowing shipping.)

Moses is being built exactly as Venice was. For centuries, Venetians drove thousands of logs into the mud to create city-wide platforms that substituted for land; the grandest palaces and largest houses of Venice simply sit on top of these logs, with no other means of support (which is why the climax of Casino Royale, with a Venetian palace sinking into the lagoon, is probably impossible). This new marvel is being built with steel-and-concrete piles, and without interfering with nature in any way – all the construction takes place on artificial islands that will house the controls."