About two months ago, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said every other citizen was drinking water straight from the tap. Eight in 10 Seoulites were also using tap water for cooking as well as making tea and coffee, City Hall said based on its own survey.
The opinion poll might be grossly exaggerated, but it is true that most of the 24 million residents in the capital city and surrounding Gyeonggi Province believe in the improving water quality of the Han River in part because of seemingly clearer water and because of continuous official assurance. The central and local governments, which have poured $20 billion into bettering water quality over the past decade, are vowing to lift it to the second grade by 2015.
Then came the environment ministry's report Wednesday, which said the water quality of the river has not just kept worsening over the past three years but has hit the worst level since 1994 when officials began to gather related data. Have these officials been stupid or fraudulent or both?
According to the latest finding, the chemical oxygen demand of Paldang Reservoir in the upper Han River, the single largest source of potable water in the world, stood at 4 ppm last year, the worst in 15 years. The COD ― which indicates the mass of oxygen consumed per liter of solution ― in lower-river area nearby Haengju Grand Bridge even exceeded 7 ppm, not suitable for even sundry uses like mopping floors or farming.
The 3rd-grade water quality in the lower part of the river is also seriously contaminated with excessive colitis germs, and could not be used as a source of piped water at all if it were in industrial countries.
Blame should first go to the local autonomous body that failed to prevent the contamination and the central government that neglected proper supervision. Experts blame, however, reckless development ― namely the building of numerous restaurants, motels and resort facilities as well as the ceaseless erection of apartment complexes ― along the river that runs through the so-called metropolitan area from ㄷeast to west.
Coming to mind is Mayor Oh Se-hoon's ``Han River Renaissance" project, which calls for adding various artificial facilities to the river while never allowing nature to remain as it used to be. It will likely be highlighted by Oh's ``floating island" idea, which will set up man-made islets fixed by gigantic buoys on the river and use them as a possible venue for the G-20 summit in November. What would global leaders say about convention centers standing on third-grade water risking safety problems and further environmental degradation?
Even more gruesome is the possibility of the Han River's plight spreading to the other three large rivers ― Geum, Yeongsan and Nakdong ― under the ongoing ``four-rivers" project, as a key policy defining the Lee Myung-bak administration. President Lee and his aides often cite Paldang Reservoir as the example of improved water quality in a dam. They may be able to do so by building more wastewater treatment plants and water-purifying facilities, but that means most Koreans will have to drink water with 10 times as much chlorine, a major carcinogen, as now to remove all the pollutants, as some Seoulites do currently.
Why purify water after contaminating it in the first place instead of letting it flow as it is? Such concerns deepen further, as one of the Lee administration's major objectives of the ``four-rivers" project is to build more resort facilities along them. In addition, Seoul will grow even bigger, as the Lee administration is relaxing development regulations in and around the capital while never allowing any of its key functions to move elsewhere, as seen by the Sejong City controversy.
Would you still like a cup of tap water?