the company said yesterday.

The Bermuda Electric Light Co. Ltd. has hired a British contractor to place "infrasonic soot cleaners'' on two engines in the east power station, Belco spokesman Miss Linda Smith told The Royal Gazette .

If successful as a pilot project, more such cleaners could be added to other engines in the plant, she said.

Pembroke residents who live under the fallout have complained regularly about soot belching from the Serpentine Road oil-fired electric plant.

The major culprit is the waste heat plant in the east power station, which Belco opened in the early 1980s, Miss Smith said.

The plant uses leftover heat from the other engines to generate electricity, giving Belco about two extra megawatts, and saving the company $750,000, she said.

And although it is the source of most of the soot, the waste heat plant is also an environmental feature, saving Belco from burning nearly 20,000 extra barrels of oil each year, she said.

"We've spent many years investigating ways to reduce the soot,'' Miss Smith said. "Much of the technology available also creates other environmental problems, such as loud noises.'' The infrasonic cleaners, to be installed over the next couple of months at unspecified cost, are quiet, she said. As for getting rid of soot, "we're going to have to assess how well it works.'' Meanwhile, Environment Minister the Hon. Ann Cartwright-DeCouto warned Belco yesterday that regulations to the new Clean Air Act will be tough. The new regulations, to be in place this summer, "will be tougher than the American standards,'' Mrs. Cartwright-DeCouto told The Royal Gazette . "They will be more in line with, or parallel to, the strictest Canadian, standards.'' The Environment Minister, who is MP for Pembroke West Central where Belco is located, said a draft of the regulations was shown to company officials at a recent meeting.

Miss Smith said she has not seen the draft regulations, but cited the need to balance "the environment and affordability.'' If the regulations are too tough, the cost of electricity will shoot up, she said.

Mrs. Cartwright-DeCouto said the regulations will have affect Belco's capital costs, but not its long-term operating costs.

Once the regulations are in place, Belco will have to show standards are met to obtain an operating licence, she said. Where standards fall short of the law, a plan and timetable to meet the law will be required.