Benzene levels remain high near US base

Protestors urge inspection of soil pollution in the U.S. military base in Yongsan, Seoul, in last year August. / Yonhap

By Kim Jae-heun

Samples of groundwater near the U.S. military base in central Seoul were found to have excessive levels of cancer-causing benzene, the Seoul Metropolitan Government said, Friday.

The city government recently conducted an inspection of 62 monitoring wells near U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Yongsan and found 27 out of them were heavily contaminated with the toxic substance, well above the normal groundwater purity standards.

In particular, 16 samples from 41 observation wells around Noksapyeong Station on Line 6 revealed levels of benzene 1,170 times higher than the government-set safety limit. Plus, oil was also found in the water.

Benzene is a harmful substance that can cause leukemia or hematologic malignancy and it negatively affect human generative functions. The World Health Organization classifies the substance as a class-one carcinogen.

Monitoring wells situated alongside Camp Kim, a military facility located west of Yongsan Garrison, were no exception.

Eleven out of 21 wells contained harmful substance levels exceeding the standards and the level of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) was 292 times higher than the standard.

The acceptable benzene level in groundwater is 0.015 milligrams per liter and the TPH level is 1.5 milligrams per liter.

After becoming aware of the contamination in the Noksapyeong Station area in 2001, the city government installed monitoring wells near USAG Yongsan to aid in cleaning up the groundwater and monitoring pollution levels.

In 2004, Seoul decreased the maximum benzene levels around Noksapyeong Station area by 40 percent and the maximum TPH level around Camp Kim by 95 percent compared to its 2008 levels, but both are still far higher than specified by the Groundwater Act.

“Despite a continuous effort to purify the groundwater, the benzene levels greatly still exceed the acceptable level and oil floats on the surface of water because toxic substances leaked in the military base in the past are still there,” the city official said. “We predict they flow all around the U.S. base including Noksapyeong Station area in the underground water system.”

Bae Kwang-hwan, director general of the city government's Water Circulation Safety, said his organization will cooperate with the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Environment to conduct internal tests of water pollution in the military base and purify it before returning the territory to Korea. It also hopes to revise regulations of the U.S.-South Korea Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) as part of the city's efforts to tackle environmental issues here.

Meanwhile, the city government confirmed that toxic substances including benzene have not been spread over the private sector.