[Editorial] USFK relocation

The Yongsan-based U.S. Eighth Army Command has started its move down to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. Most of the U.S. troops will be moved by 2017, according to the Defense Ministry of South Korea.

While the U.S. troops have been located in Yongsan since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, the remaining issue is the alleged contamination of surrounding areas near the Yongsan Garrison, the U.S. military base in central Seoul.

Seoul City estimates that 1,870 tons of polluted water have been emitted near the base up to last year, with toxic substances including xylene and toluene found in the underground water system.

The city government has been carrying out purification activities for more than a decade after oil leaks were detected around Noksapyeong Station, near the U.S. base. Local environment activists have argued that the cleanup efforts must be carried out on base as well.

But the lingering problem is that the United States Forces Korea has not fully been cooperative with the city government’s move to carry out a detailed investigation inside the camp.

Since the city officials started looking into 32 sites within the restricted areas in early 2015, they have found that eight of them meet conditions for sampling because their underground water level is 45 meters or deeper.

The city suspects the U.S. military camps are the source of oil that has polluted at least 12,000 square meters of land and more than 7 million liters of underground water since 2001 when an oil spill was reported.

It seems that the Korean government sits idle by some research analysis, which alleged that the concentration of the toxic chemical, petroleum hydrocarbons in the groundwater near the U.S. military’s Yongsan base in Seoul has increased by about 10 times in the past four years.

The government has yet to grasp the extent of the pollution inside the base and cleanup operations have yet to start, so experts argue that efforts to clean up just the surrounding areas will have limited effects.

If the U.S. military does not disclose happenings inside the base, the Korean government should take the initiative in scrutinizing the contaminated areas on the outskirts of the base via close collaboration with Seoul City.

Among the 14 locations surrounding the U.S. Yongsan base where pollution was confirmed since 2000, the only places being investigated are Noksapyeong Station and the area near Camp Kim.

It is not reasonable for central Seoul residents to tolerate the reportedly spreading contagion for a year or more until the USFK base relocation is completed.