During the fervor of the Water Dumping (coming during the South-North
Summit build up (June 7th 2000) and, more importantly, the push by the
Korean government to get an environmental section added to the SOFA) the
story below brought a quick boost to the spike of hatred. It was a
short-lived event, but a Green Korea victory when it was still a young organization
on the scene.
Green Korea had just finished making a name for itself with the Water Dumping
revelations. It controlled the story in the Korean public - thanks to the
desire of the Koran media to use it as a way to editorialize against the
arrogant Americans in regular news stories:
Dealing another blow to the reputation of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), a civic group claimed yesterday that huge amounts of untreated aircraft fuel have leaked from an American military camp into a major tap water source for the past 10 years.
"We have confirmed that the Som River, which is the tap water source for about 210,000 Wonju residents, has been exposed to oil contamination until recently," Lim Sam-jin, a GKU official, told a news conference. "The leaked oil has also caused serious soil contamination around the U.S. camp."
I can't think of one Korean person I know who used tap water. All Koreans buy large bottle water for office water cooler type dispensers to use in the apartment or home every week or so to drink. Some students, including ones in smaller cities I worked in, sometimes told me not to wash vegetables or other things without boiling tap water first, but this was not the norm. The point is, Koreans don't consume tap water, because their water sources have been so polluted for so long during Korea's rapid industrial development. But, they feel moral outrage at common oil seepage on US bases?
Under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), USFK was supposed to notify the Korean government of the incident, but did not, although it became aware of the situation in June during repair work on the underground oil storage tank, the group said. (Korea Herald 9/26/2000)
"The American military has
unscrupulously
dumped
used oil into the tap water source.
We will demand a through investigation and punishment for
those responsible," a GKU
official said. (Korea Herald 9/27/2000)
Well, just here by itself, there is a big difference between noticing a
leak when doing other repairs and "dumping" oil into tap water.
I recommend you check out
Green Korea's
website, particularly its early mission statements, to see how dedicated
the group is to the Korean environment as opposed to more basic anti-US military
goals.
Note - they have toned down their website as of my checking in the fall of 2003 moving to a tactic of verbiage about "joining the nations of the world" on environmentalism - and world peace - to mask the specific Korean-ness and anti-American nature of their reason for being. But it still comes through. They have also been altered by their huge success in 2000 from the popularity they gained in attacking the US successfully. They have gained branches in other cities in the nation, and these somewhat autonomous groups have gotten around to looking at some Korean made environmental problems.
USFK responded quickly to the claims by Green Korea and the Wonju city government.
U.S. Forces Korea officials spent three hours Thursday at this tiny camp explaining the system for handling waste aviation fuel to officials from the South Korean Environmental Ministry, nearby Wonju City and the Korean press.
On Wednesday, Maj. Andy Knights, 19th Theater Support Command base operations officer,took the officials to the culvert and showed them that what appeared to be leaking oil in the Green Korea United photograph actually was algae.
He also showed the group how fuel and water is separated, with the oil being stored in a holding tank. The water then is processed at the camp’s purification station.
Knights showed the group how water that spills from the pumping station, which operates the separator, flows through a drain into a large concrete box called a sand pit. Sand in the pit is removed and disposed of by a Korean contractor. The contractor also disposes of waste fuel.
"It’s the responsibility of the contractor," he said, "to ensure that the contaminated soil and the waste fuel is properly disposed of according to Korean law.
(Stars and Stripes article)
But, as usual, the anti-US civic groups are able to control "the truth"
in Korean society.
Green Korea got much play in the media out of a photo of a simple concrete
box on the US base saying it was "a sign" of USFK's complete contempt for
the health of the Korean people.
He said the charges are based on photos of an empty concrete box that the group claims is proof that waste aviation fuel is not properly treated.
"The concrete boxes are secondary containment systems to capture any fuel that might leak from the fuel tanks," DeSoto said. "The fuel tanks and containment vaults are being purged, cleaned out and sandblasted as part of a $1 million project to upgrade fuel facilities at Camp Eagle."
Green Korea United charged that there are no oil-water separators at the camp. DeSoto countered that there are, but they have not been in use since the upgrade began. He said the project includes replacing the current separators and installing vapor monitors and alarms to warn of leaks.
"What happened here is that several months ago, USFK identified an environmental need and allocated the necessary resources to fix it," DeSoto said.
(Stars and Stripes article)
The information provided by USFK did quiet the Wonju city officials.
They were reported as having "no comment" on the Camp Eagle fuel claim in
the days after the briefing.
Green Korea kept up the attack and you can find it on their website, but
by this time, they had hit pay dirt, literally, at
the
second US base
in Wonju.
