INTERVIEW Environment ministry ends decades-long local drinking water dispute

Environment Minister Han Jeoung-ae poses during an interview with The Korea Times at the Han River Flood Control Center in Seoul's Seocho District, April 8. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

By Ko Dong-hwan

• Published Apr 15, 2022 1:45 PM KST
• Updated Apr 15, 2022 7:15 PM KST

Korea, known as a “climate villain,” now sets a global example in emissions trading

By Ko Dong-hwan

Environment Minister Han Jeoung-ae can recall a number of accomplishments she is proud of after she took the helm of the ministry in January of last year. She is proud that the country set goals to protect against climate change such as neutralizing carbon emissions by 2050 and, as part of Korea's Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), reducing greenhouse gases 40 percent compared to 2018 levels by 2030. She liked that Korea was recognized during the UN Climate Change Conference U.K. 2021 in Glasgow (COP26) for its competitive goals and respectable passion that were comparable to the world's leading countries. Traveling across the country to solve some of the most deep-rooted domestic issues during her tenure also makes her smile.

Of them, Han said that one achievement she is most proud of is ending a 30-year-long drinking water dispute between Daegu and Gumi in North Gyeongsang Province.

“It was one of the oldest and most significant problems our ministry had dealt with,” the minister said during a recent interview with The Korea Times at Han River Flood Control Center in Seoul's Seocho District. “We were able to resolve the problem after gaining control over the lower streams of rivers from another ministry, which allowed us to take control of the country's entire natural water system as a whole this year.”

Since 1991, when phenol leaked from a factory district in Gumi and polluted drinking water for Daegu through a lower stream of the Nakdong River, sickening Daegu residents, the people of both cities have been clashing over their drinking water supply. The accident's repercussions back then were so huge that the conflict prompted the central government to upgrade the organization that was dedicated to the environment from an agency to a ministry in 1994.

Yet, hazardous chemicals leaking into the river from the Gumi Factory District ― some 37 kilometers north of Daegu ― weren't completely gone. 1,4-Dioxane was found in tap water in Daegu in 2006, followed by toxic perfluorinated compound (PFC) in 2018. Daegu residents demanded their drinking water supply be moved to a part of the river upstream from the factory district so that they could share drinking water with Gumi. Gumi residents, meanwhile, strongly opposed the initiative, arguing that doing so would cause further expansion of government regulations on areas around their city's drinking water supply, preventing city development, while allowing Daegu to develop its areas around the river freely.

After governmental control over metropolitan cities' drinking water supply was transferred from the land ministry to the environment ministry in 2019, the environment ministry started tackling the dispute. Han wanted Gumi to share half of their drinking water with Daegu.

“The minister, who heads the river's highest governance committee comprised of civic experts, played a key role behind the passage of a law in June 2021 to manage the river at the state level,” Lee Seung-hyun, senior deputy director of the Water Policy Coordination Division under the ministry, told the Times. The committee didn't have any representatives from Gumi on it back then. “The minister then repeatedly visited Gumi to persuade residents that they wouldn't lose anything by sharing their drinking water source with Daegu.”

Gumi eventually agreed to the minister's proposal to share their drinking water source, with the city's mayor, Jang Se-yong, signing an agreement this past April 4 to lay a new drinking water pipeline between the two cities.

Touting Korea's environmental drives

In its role as a firm part of the global consensus to reduce carbon emissions to protect against the deadly impacts of the climate crisis, Korea has set some model examples for how to lower a country's overall carbon emissions. In particular, Han highly praised the country's emissions trading system (ETS). In emissions trading systems, governments allocate or sell a limited number of permits to companies that allow the discharge of a specific amount of a pollutant during a set time frame.

“We are currently controlling an immense amount of domestic emissions through the ETS,” Han, who also concurrently serves as a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, said. “Out of all of the country's emissions, 85 percent came from companies that are subject to trading their carbon emission permits via the ETS as of 2020. This figure shows that Korea has one of the world's strongest policies for controlling domestic carbon emissions.”

Still, a major portion of the emissions permits are given to companies for free. Han looks to put a price on more of these carbon permits, calling the measure's effect “almost on par with a carbon tax.”

“If we extended the ETS' coverage a little more over the remaining 15 percent of companies, we will be able to say that virtually all of the companies in our country fall under the ETS. With such a powerful tool, we won't really need to introduce an additional carbon tax.”

In the OECD Environmental Meetings at Ministerial level held in Paris last March, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann referred to Korea's ETS as “the best practice of its kind,” and suggested to the minister that Korea's ETS be promoted among the other member states of the OECD and the G20, according to Han. “I said, 'That's perfectly fine with us,'” she recalled.

While the world is divided over the usage of nuclear power plants, which have serious environmental risks, Han did not call for a complete turn away from the energy. Instead, she said that it could be used while Korea further develops renewable energy-based power generation technologies and increases their portion in the country's overall energy mix. Nuclear power currently accounts for about 30 percent of the country's overall power output. With 21 nuclear power plants currently in operation, the density of nuclear power plants in Korea ― which is 70 percent mountains and 30 percent flat areas ― is one of the world's highest.

“After the country last year saw growing concerns regarding a possible energy shortage in the near future, the need for nuclear power increased among members of the public,” Han said. It was a contrasting scene from 2017, when the country expressed strong anti-nuclear sentiment after earthquakes in Gyeongju and Pohang sent a wake-up call that nuclear power plants in the country's coastal cities could be dangerously affected by such seismic activity, leading to the facilities' destruction, radiation spills and environmental contamination. In the presidential election of that year, all of the candidates pledged to phase out nuclear power, including current President Moon Jae-in.

“The suspended construction of Shin Hanul Nuclear Reactors No. 3 and 4 in Uljin will have to resume carefully, keeping local residents transparently informed of the facility's potential risks and other concerns,” said Han. “Meanwhile, our country's technologies for renewable energies will evolve fast. Solar panels, for example, can now generate power even during the night by making use of their own radiant heat, which is warmer than the surrounding nighttime temperature. So, while eco-friendly technologies keep growing, we can take advantage of our nuclear power.”

Banning illegal bear farming

As a minister, Han has been dealing with problems not only of planetary and international concern but also those of people in local communities. One of her legacies, she shared, was banning the country's 40-year-old practice of illegal bear farming for harvesting the animal's gall bladder bile, which is used as a traditional medicinal ingredient and has fueled a lucrative trade.

A number of environmental initiatives by the ministry and other central government agencies jointly carrying out environmental projects have encountered the objections of local residents. To solve such conflicts, Han clarified that the benefits of such government initiatives must go back to the local residents, not to outsiders who might have invested in the projects.

“People object to erecting wind turbines, solar panels, incinerating plants or landfills in their communities because there have been cases in which the benefits of these facilities went to outside investors, while the local people didn't get anything,” Han said. “If the local residents also benefit from such facilities, they will be more interested in managing the facilities by themselves.”

A floating photovoltaic panel farm in Hapcheon is a good example of having overcome such local NIMBY ― or “not in my backyard” ― sentiments, according to Han. From the start, residents of the South Gyeongsang provincial county were informed about the business and were aware that they could invest in the business and receive part of its profits in return. The solar farm also took the design of a plum blossom ― the city's symbolic flower ― and was lit up at night, becoming a local tourist hotspot.

Union Park in Hanam, Eco Center in Pyeongtaek and a sewage treatment facility in Osan have also proven to local residents that it is possible for waste treatment or recycling facilities to serve the public as enjoyable urban parks, waterparks or pet parks.

Another group of concerned people the minister took a special note of was Korea's youth, more and more of whom have joined environmental groups to declare they will be the sole victims of the climate crisis and to demand that the central government go beyond the current status quo to protect the country from the disastrous effects of unchecked climate change.

The environment ministry integrated the “2040 climate neutral scenario” ― which the youth environmental group, Green Environment Youth Korea (GEYK), proposed to the government, demanding that it go carbon neutral by 2040 instead of the planned 2050 ― into their own carbon neutral plans. The ministry also hosted the country's first environmental forum dedicated to youth in September 2021 to hear what the young activists had to say, and Han was there.

“It was before we had made a decision on Korea's NDC,” Han said. “Back then, lawmakers in the National Assembly assumed that 35 percent would be okay for our NDC. The students at the forum told us that the figure must be doubled, and that I must demand it from other lawmakers.”

The grown-ups in the business sector said that setting the country's NDC at 40 percent was too harsh. They also asked for more free carbon permits to use in the ETS. Han said, however, that if the ministry had agreed to their requests, there would be “nothing left for our future generations.”

“The incoming new government had asked for votes particularly from those in their 20s and 30s during the country's latest presidential election campaign, but now it seems like voters' opinions are hitting a wall with the new incoming administration. The incoming Yoon administration will have to listen to their voices through various channels and implement their voices in shaping their policies.”