On a slow trip back from hell: the infamous Black Triangle had the worst pollution ever recorded in the industrialized world. Now a sick and weary people are tackling their nightmare

International Wildlife, Jan-Feb, 1998 by Don Hinrichsen

The continuing pollution strikes children particularly hard. Despite improvements in air quality over the last four years, pediatric hospitals in the region have up to 12 times the number of sick children as the Czech average, and infant-mortality rates are more than 40 percent higher than the national norm. Overall, infants and small children suffer twice as many serious ailments when compared to the rest of the population. Respiratory disease, for instance, has seen a five-fold increase among preschoolers when compared to the rest of the western Czech Republic. Children are particularly at risk from pollution because their immune systems are not fully developed.

Dr. Petr Endler, a pediatrician working in Usti nad Labem, has had to deal with pollution-induced child ailments for 20 years. "Often I treat children with rashes all over their bodies. But I realize I am, in most cases, only treating the symptoms, not the real causes," Endler says. "The best I can do for most of my patients is make sure that their immune systems are as strong as possible. This gives them added protection against illnesses triggered or made worse by pollution."

Despite such health problems--or perhaps because of them--the region is making notable progress, the beneficiary of democracy, economic restructuring and outside aid. The turnaround began with the Velvet Revolution of 1989-90, which tossed out the Communists and installed elected local governments more responsive to citizen concerns.

Environmental issues were high on political agendas at the time. In 1992, the Czech Republic passed its own version of the Clean Air Act. The new law required that all power plants in the country be rebuilt or retrofitted with pollution-control equipment by the end of 1999, or close down. Once economic restructuring took hold, many unprofitable, state-run enterprises were forced to close their doors, thereby eliminating some of the worst offenders. At the same time, combating pollution that wafted across their borders became a central priority for West European governments and their collective entity, the European Community.

Germany, the economic powerhouse of Europe, has spent a considerable amount of money retrofitting polluting power plants and other heavy industries in its former Communist-controlled eastern half. But the German government has also committed funds to help the Czechs clean up the Bohemian coal belt. In all, Germany has channeled around $100 million to the Czech Republic to underwrite the costs of pollution control. Meantime, across the border in Silesia, Sweden is helping the Polish government rebuild polluting power stations and construct waste-water treatment plants.

One person who is working hard to build a better environment in the heart of Bohemia is Vaclav Pucherna, deputy mayor and head of the local green party in Usti nad Labem. A large, balding, no-nonsense man, Pucherna is bullish about the future. "By closing down several polluting factories and cutting emissions from private homes, we have managed to cut air pollution significantly over the past five years," he says. According to his statistics, polluting emissions in his city have been reduced from 3,500 metric tons in 1990 to just 400 metric tons by 1996. "In 1989/90 we had 31 smog days' in the city during the winter months," Pucherna says. "But in 1995 we recorded just five."