Yongsan Park Set for Partial Opening Amid Heavy Soil and Water Contamination

[Anchor]

The former US military base site slated to become Yongsan Park will open for a trial run in three days. While partial contamination was previously known and sparked controversy, SBS has obtained the investigation results for the remaining areas, revealing severe levels of pollution in both the soil and groundwater.

Environmental Specialist Reporter Jang Se-man has this exclusive report.

[Reporter]

This is the US military site in Yongsan that will be opened to the public for a trial run in three days.

Centered around a 1.1-kilometer road stretching east and west, the site is divided into six zones to the north and south.

Among them, four zones were newly returned last month, prompting initial environmental assessments.

This is the contamination assessment report obtained by SBS.

Total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), which indicate potential oil leaks, were detected at levels up to 28 times the legal standard.

Class 1 carcinogens such as arsenic, along with pollutants like xylene, copper, lead, and zinc, all exceeded regulatory limits across all four sites.

The groundwater situation was similar.

The TPH concentration in the groundwater exceeded the standard by more than 190 times, and large amounts of contaminants such as chromium and phenol were also detected.

With this latest investigation, the extent of contamination has been confirmed for all six zones adjacent to the trial opening area.

All six sites exceeded soil and water pollution standards.

If these areas are utilized for residential or commercial and industrial purposes, the risk of causing cancer in residents or workers was found to exceed acceptable levels.

However, conflicting arguments persist regarding the hazardousness of this upcoming trial opening.

While opposition parties and environmental groups maintain that visitors could be exposed to danger if harmful substances come into contact with skin or the respiratory tract, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport counters that there is no problem, as mitigating measures such as laying artificial turf over contaminated areas have been completed and visiting hours are limited to two hours.

Another issue is who will shoulder the future cleanup costs for the site.

Because the principle is to return the land first and negotiate later, it could potentially put South Korea at a disadvantage.

[Jung Kyu-seok / Secretary General, Green Korea United: How can we tell citizens to use the park, while at the same time telling the US military that dangerous pollutants are here so they must bear the costs?]

While the return of more than 70 percent of targeted US military bases has been completed, negotiations on sharing cleanup costs have yet to be finalized for any of them.

(Video Editing: Lee Seung-jin, CG: Jeon Yu-keun, VJ: Park Hyun-woo)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.