[CPEO-MEF] GLOBAL, FORMER BASES: "Soil at site of old US base in Chuncheon [South Korea] found to be contaminated with oil"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Soil at site of old US base in Chuncheon found to be contaminated with oil
Discovery prompts criticism that site wasn’t properly decontaminated by MND

By Park Soo-hyuk
The Hankyoreh (S. Korea)
May.7,2020 

Oil contamination has been found in the soil at an old US military base in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, prompting criticism that South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense did a shoddy job on the cleanup.

Chuncheon municipal officials said on May 6 that they’d commissioned Sanji University to investigate the extent of pollution at the former site of Camp Page. The soil is tainted with oil, and oil has also been observed on the surface of puddles, along with a severe stench.

The oil contamination at the site was discovered while the city was carrying out a dig for historical artifacts, in preparation for building an urban park there.
On a visit to the dig on Wednesday, oil glistened on puddles after the rain, and the dug-up dirt stank of oil.

The old base site covers an area of 56,000 square meters in the Geunhwa and Soyang neighborhoods of Chuncheon. American troops were stationed there from 1951 until 2005, when they withdrew, handing the site over to the South Korean authorities.

…

For the entire article, see
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/944040.html

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org





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