ENVIRONMENT : Anti-Smog Efforts Not Working, Say Choking Chileans

Looking down from Farellones, an Andean ski resort, you can see Santiago. That is, you can see where Santiago sprawls in its filth, an obliterating blanket of noxious gray smog.

Greater Santiago has 5 million people. For those not fortunate enough to escape to the slopes, the smog can be troublesome to say the least.

On the worst days, nursery school classes are canceled, residents are advised against unnecessary exercise and smoking, four of every 10 motor vehicles are banned, factories shut down and some people wear air-filter masks.

Two recent emergency days have heightened public impatience with government efforts to control the city’s air-pollution problem, one of the worst in the world. Environmentalists, doctors, journalists and even politicians in the governing coalition are criticizing official anti-smog policy.

Officials say they are making progress, but it will be years before the problem is solved.

Meanwhile, respiratory illness rages at several times the rate in other Chilean cities. “The contamination is killing children, and it is killing old people,” said Guido Girardi, who heads the environment commission of the Party for Democracy, a ruling coalition partner.

The worst pollution here is “breathable particles” spewed by diesel engines, factories, fuel oil furnaces and wood stoves. A fleet of 10,000 buses, operated by private companies, causes more than 70% of the particle pollution, according to studies.

About 400,000 taxis and other automobiles are responsible for increasing pollution from carbon monoxide, ozone and other gases. The number of cars in Santiago is growing by about 60,000 a year.

Many Chileans blame the smog on the military government that ruled the country from 1973 to 1990. As the economy grew in the 1980s, authorities allowed almost unrestricted imports of cars and even secondhand bus engines.

But one of the main reasons for Santiago smog is something no one can control: The city, like Los Angeles, lies in a basin where air currents are trapped by mountains and thermal inversions form a lid that keeps dirty air from rising.

In 1990, civilian President Patricio Aylwin created a special anti-pollution commission that made plans for reducing smog by 60% in eight years. Measures taken so far have reduced pollution by 10%, the commission says.

During the Southern Hemisphere winter, 20% of all vehicles are kept off the streets each workday, and last year, more than 2,000 old buses were taken out of circulation permanently. Buses and cars must pass periodic emission tests.

This week, the government issued a decree exempting buses from retirement decrees if they use approved catalytic exhaust filters, which cost about $1,000 each. The main bus owners’ association said the filters will be installed in its 5,500 buses.

The government has begun auctioning bus routes to further limit and control bus pollution. It also passed a decree requiring newly imported cars to have catalytic converters.

A program requiring factories to reduce pollution is expected to cut industrial emissions by 20% at the end of this year and an additional 50% by the end of 1997. The government also is planning an increase in the number of electric trolley buses and an expansion of the Santiago subway system.

Critics say the measures are insufficient.

The influential newspaper El Mercurio said in an editorial last weekend that authorities have yet to fully diagnose the smog problem, let alone implement measures that can solve it.

“Developed countries, with much superior technologies . . . have spent billions of dollars to fight air contamination without success. A case in point is the city of Los Angeles,” El Mercurio said.