By Kim Se-jeong
Suwon local government and environmental NGOs are conducting investigations into what caused about 1,000 fish to die in a small stream cutting through the city.
The dead fish were found the Woncheon Stream on Friday morning near Joongang Bridge, close to a Samsung Electronics manufacturing facility.
“We suspect toxic water from the factory killed the fish,” said an official.
The city government is expecting the results of initial examinations today. The NGOs also took samples for their own analysis.
A Samsung spokesman blamed a subcontractor for polluting the stream.
“A contractor handling the factory’s sewage and wastewater management discharged an excessive amount of sodium hypochlorite,” said the spokesman.
However, environmentalists suspect more toxic chemical than sodium hypochlorite was discharged from the factory.
“From the way they died, it takes a more toxic chemical to kill them instantly,” said one activist from Korea Friends of the Earth.
The activist expressed concerns that the discharge could destroy more fish downstream.
After years of suffering from pollution, the stream’s ecology has been slowly recovering. The activists have found species such as fry, snakehead fish, mudfish and minnows in its waters.