By Kim Rahn
The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Tuesday that it has removed about 2,000 tons of oil-contaminated underground water around U.S. Army bases in the capital area over the last decade.
568 liters of floating oil and 1,970 tons of polluted underground water have been extracted since 2001 near two U.S. camps in central Seoul ― Yongsan Garrison and Camp Kim.
The revelation came amid growing public anxiety over the alleged burial of toxic defoliant in Camp Carroll in North Gyeongsang Province in the 1970s by the U.S. Army.
“We’ve removed oil-contaminated water around Noksapyeong Station near Yongsan Garrison since 2001. Around Camp Kim, adjacent to the garrison and near Namyeong Station, contaminated water and oil have been extracted since 2008,” a city official said.
The city presumes 11,776 square meters of land around Noksapyeong Station and 459 square meters around Camp Kim continue to be polluted.
The official said the contamination of land near Noksapyeong Station is believed to have started in January 2001 when an old oil tank underneath the garrison cracked. The U.S. side said it finished the cleanup in 2006 but the city is still detecting polluted groundwater near the station.
“The water contained harmful chemicals including benzene, toluene and xylene. We suspect pollutants within the bases are expanding beyond the camp sites after dissolving in rainwater,” the official said.
He said such pollution is likely to continue until 2016 when the garrison and the camp are scheduled to be returned to South Korea.
The city has carried out cleanup operations for the affected land. “We have to clean up the soil inside the bases to thoroughly remove the contaminants, but we’ve removed only polluted water around the sites as we can’t gain free access to the military sites,” the official said.
He said the city has a waste water disposal agency to handle the oil and the contaminated water, so that the pollutants will not flow into the Han River.
In 2009, Seoul City won a lawsuit it filed against the South Korean Government to demand it pay 2.2 billion won ($2 million) spent for the cleanup around Noksapyeong Station between 2001 and 2008. It lodged an additional suit in March, demanding a 650-million-won compensation for similar operations in 2009-2010.
According to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), the Korean government is responsible for compensating for damage caused to a third party by the U.S. Forces in Korea.
For this year, an additional 250 million won will be needed.
“The ruling for the Noksapyeong Station case will be made in several months,” the official said.
The city government also filed a similar suit for Camp Kim, but the city and the U.S. camp have been disputing the charges.
“We believe there was an oil leakage in Camp Kim in 2006 like the one in Yongsan Garrison. But the U.S. claims there was not, and thus the camp is not responsible for the contamination. Whether we can get the cleanup cost back depends on whether the court acknowledges the camp’s responsibility for the pollution,” he said.
Separately from the two bases, the Ministry of Defense has carried out the cleanup of two returned bases in central Seoul ― 2,200 square meters of Camp Gray and 1,449 square meters of the United Nations Command compound.