"Water Shortage" vs. "300,000 Tons is Plenty": Why Calculations Differ on Dongbok Dam

[Anchor]

Regarding the plan to raise the height of Dongbok Dam to supply 300,000 tons of water per day to Gwangju's semiconductor complex, an environmental group has analyzed that the actual incoming water will be insufficient. The government countered that it can be sufficiently supplied based on the average rainfall of the past 10 years, and is also reviewing a plan to additionally draw water from the Seomjin River into Dongbok Dam.

This is Shin Dae-hee from KBC.

[Reporter]

The government plans to supply 300,000 tons of water per day from Dongbok Dam to the semiconductor complex.

The plan is to secure an additional 250,000 tons by raising the dam, on top of the existing surplus of 50,000 tons.

However, the analysis by environmental groups is different.

To supply 600,000 tons per day, combining Gwangju's domestic water and semiconductor water, 219 million tons of water are needed annually.

Analyzing national water resources data, they claim that there were only three years out of the past 18 years when more water than this flowed in.

[Lee Hyun-jung / Director, Green Politics Lab Gre: If they couldn't collect it because the dam was small, raising the height of the dam would allow them to collect more. But that wasn't the case; the inflow itself was small.]

The Ministry of Climate countered that inflow data prior to 2023 lacks accuracy.

At that time, the water discharged from Dongbok Dam was not properly measured, leading to it being recorded as lower than the actual amount.

[Ministry of Climate Official: The discharge volume itself was hardly measured before (2023). Because of that, the inflow volume itself is actually not accurate.]

The Ministry of Climate explained that by applying the average rainfall of the past 10 years and the ratio of rainfall flowing into the dam, about 600,000 tons per day can be secured.

To prepare for drought conditions, the government also plans to install a pipeline to draw surplus water from the Seomjin River to Dongbok Dam.

However, it has not yet been decided how much water will be brought through this pipeline, how high Dongbok Dam will be raised, or how much the water storage capacity will increase.

The government plans to flesh out its basic blueprint, including the raising of Dongbok Dam and the supply scale of the emergency pipeline, by the end of this year.

(Video footage by: Yeom Pil-ho, KBC)

Shin Dae-hee, KBC
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.