Ministry to start cleanup of former intelligence command HQ site

The headquarters of the Korea Defense Intelligence Command (KDIC) under the Ministry of National Defense's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in Seocho-gu, Seoul is seen in this 2003 photo. The KDIC headquarters moved to Anyang, Gyeonggi Province in 2015. Korea Times file

By Jung Da-min

The Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday it will start designing a clean-up project for the former site of the Korea Defense Intelligence Command (KDIC) headquarters under the ministry's Defense Intelligence Agency in Seocho-gu, southern Seoul, starting August.

The announcement came a day after recent data showed the site was heavily contaminated, a result of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), a chemical compound found in crude oil. Rep. Kim Byung-kee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), who is also a member of Assembly defense and intelligence committees, raised the issue.

Ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo said the ministry's Military Construction Project Division has been "conducting a process to evaluate possible impact of the contamination on the site on environmental fronts."

The spokeswoman added the division will kick off the cleanup in August in accordance with the Soil Environment Conservation Act (SECA).

According to the data, the highest TPH concentration at the site was about 33,300 ppm, more than 40 times the permissible level of 800 ppm for a multipurpose site as SECA mandates.

After the KDIC was transferred to Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, in 2015, its former headquarters site was sold recently to a private company for 1 trillion won ($8.4 million).

The evaluation standard for the environmental contamination, accordingly, has been strengthened from the permissible level of 2,000 ppm for a military site to 800 ppm for a multipurpose site, but the 33,300 ppm figure is still high even with the former standard for a military site.

The current law requires an immediate clean-up for a site that has over 2,400 TPH concentration. Other pollutants such as benzene, xylene and fluorine have also been found in the contaminated soil, the release showed.

While TPH has been found in about 2,200 square meters of the area, about a third of a soccer field, fluorine has been found in about 36,000 square meters of the area.

The ministry had appropriated a related budget of about 48.7 billion won, but has yet to execute it.

The ministry said it had been proceeding with the initial phases of the project over the past five years, conducting the environmental evaluation and designing process. The designing phase was supposed to be completed during the second half of last year but has been put off as it was reviewing the plans to better comply with the strengthened standards.

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