By Kim Sue-young
Staff Reporter
South Korea is expected to outlay billions of won to clean up contamination caused by oil leakages from a former pipeline of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) which penetrated the country, according to the South Korean Army Thursday.
The 458-kilometer Trans-Korea Pipeline (TKP) was built by the USFK between 1969 and 1970 to provide its base camps with petroleum.
Even though the U.S. Army had benefited from the facility for nearly two decades, Seoul alone will likely shoulder financial burdens as it was handed over ownership in 1992.
A ministry official said it will be impossible to request the USFK to pay damages for contamination caused before the ownership transfer, Yonhap reported.
``When the agreement was signed in 1992, there was little understanding on the importance of environmental issues, so the accord lacks any provision that allows collection of damages from contamination,'' said Choi Dong-shik, an official of the Defense Ministry munitions and planning office.
The government has filed a suit against two firms, SK Group and Daehan Oil Pipeline Corporation, which were contracted to manage the pipeline in 1992-1999 and 1999-2005, respectively.
After the transfer of ownership, leakage of oil has occurred a total of 18 times. The ministry, thus, shut down 348 kilometers of the network which were later replaced by the South-North pipeline in 2005.
The South Korean Army began to remove the outlived pipeline in 2005, and as of June some 150 kilometers of the pipe has been removed.
The remaining 196 kilometers would remain as some of it is buried under tall buildings and road, or in some cases owners of land surrounding the pipeline who refused to have the the old pipes dug out, an Army official said.
The study results by the Army found contamination in 23 areas exceeded ceilings set by Environment Ministry by over 20 times at worst.
The amount of money needed for clean-up has yet to be estimated but approximately 10 billion won was drawn up as a budget for the cleaning which is scheduled between this October and 2011, the official said.