Santiago Governor Claudio Orrego sent an official letter to Las Condes Mayor Catalina San Martín. In it, he rejects the claim that the Regional Government (GORE) failed to carry out the water study needed to install dynamic barriers in San Carlos de Apoquindo. These barriers help contain debris flows and were not installed before last week's mass movement.
BioBioChile obtained access to the document. In it, Orrego responds to San Martín's remarks to the press on October 9. Asked whether the installation of the barriers was on schedule, the mayor replied that the municipality had requested the study from GORE and that it "did not carry out the study for various reasons".
According to San Martín, that was why the municipality carried out the study with Asociación Parque Cordillera. Staff from the Las Condes Municipal Planning Secretariat (Secplan) then georeferenced the locations where the barriers could be installed, and the agreement with the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) was implemented.
The letter reconstructs the timeline since the January 31 debris flow. Orrego says GORE offered, while at the site, to fund studies to mitigate debris flow risks in the municipality's Andean foothills. On February 12, professionals from the Regional Planning and Development Division (Diplader) met with the municipal team and proposed applying for funding under Subheading 31 of the National Regional Development Fund.
On March 7, the Secplan director reported on a preliminary study identifying priority areas. The measures and their locations still needed to be determined. The official asked whether there was a faster route, because the application process took between four and eight months.
Nine days later, the head of Diplader proposed meeting that same week and offered to implement an initiative costing less than 5,000 UTM, a faster route. On April 2, he recorded in writing that the Secplan director had informed him that the municipality had completed the design using its own teams.
Orrego maintains that GORE's technical guidance "was not based on a discretionary decision, but on a legal requirement". He also says the body "neither refused nor failed to fund the study": it offered two funding routes, and the municipality chose to develop it internally.
San Martín gives a different account, according to Emol. She says that during the summer she urgently requested the study from a GORE representative, who promised to expedite it. Later, her teams received instructions to submit a formal request for evaluation. The mayor denies that the municipality declined support because it had its own resources. She attributes the decision to the time frames and administrative procedures.
The dispute had been escalating. San Martín criticized Orrego for not attending the regional Disaster Risk Management Committee (Cogrid) on Sunday. The governor replied that he was the first official to arrive in the area and that GORE was also handling the evacuation of an informal settlement in Talagante and the closure of route G-25 in Cajón del Maipo. He also wrote on social media that Las Condes has a budget more than twice GORE's budget for the entire region. The mayor called that message disrespectful to residents.
At the end of the letter, Orrego acknowledges the municipality's work and asks San Martín to consider this background in her future communications on the subject. So far, the mayor has not publicly responded to the document.
