Should the U.S. clean the bases they are leaving for the Korean governement?

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...601240001.html

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ummm ya.. they left the mess they should clean it up. its sorta like staying at homeones house, you don't just make a huge mess and then walk away from it

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I originally posted this to GI Korea's blog in response to his thoughts about the proposal.

Should USFK pay? I think it depends on what the future use of the army base will be. If the bases will become a ROK army base, then no clean up should be done. A cursory glance at the ROK camps between Dongducheon and Uijongbu show that the ground and water will be polluted again shortly after the ROK takes over. If the camp will be converted for agricultural, commercial or residential use then appropriate clean up should be done. The costs of the projects should be divided between both the Korean and US militaries.

On a side note, I recently edited a fellow teacher's abstract for her master’s thesis on flood control and water pollution in the Dongducheon Area. You'd be happy to hear that the main culprits of river pollution mentioned were the small textile and leather industries, not the USFK. However, the USFK was blamed for taking up too much prime real estate, which in turn has caused people to move into different flood plains.

I would concur with the use of the base after the US vacats the property. This may be a little off track; however, I believe everyone should learn from Germany's practice of disposal of chemicals and the environment. This also should be on a case by case basis. The major question should be as to the extent of the contamination, could it have been avoided? I believe there are several factors to consider.

In the US you had you have 6 different documents stamped by no less than a dozen individuals including the custodial staff to dispose of a gallon of contaminated paint. You also had to deal with the MSDS sheets. This discouraged those who would have normally would have disposed of the paint. This encouraged those individuals to dump it anyway they could.

While stationed in Germany in 88, I was impressed at the ease of disposal and containment. There were containers at various collection points to ease the collection. People would actually go out of their way to ensure it was disposed of. I also had an unfortunate oppotunity to see how careless some of the individuals performing maintenance were. Prior to removing any component where there was a potential for lubricants to seep into the enviornment they laid down a plastic tarp to collect any stray contaminants.

We do not want to repeat what the Russians did to East Germany? We all need to be more environmentially conscious. That applies to everyone.

You have to look at the context in which this is happening. Igonre all of it today until the clean up actually begins. Skip even deals signed, because they often fall apart before or at the start of actually putting them into action.

SK did not focus on the environment in its rapid industrial development. While the environement was not high on most nation's lists in the 50 and 60s, it was even less so in Korea. It really isn't put into practice as a high priority today. So, South Korea has big environmental problems, and the US bases are part of that, but from what I've been able to gather, the USFK environmental practices over the years have tended to fall in line more with overall US military changes rather than South Korean changes (with the US military moving farther faster).

But, all of that is really academic to this discussion - the public one.

USFK environmental pollution became a hot button issue in 2000. The euphoria over the historic NK-SK Summit, with Kim Dae-Jung shaking hands with Kim Jong-Il led even conservative pro-American South Koreans to believe for a short time peace was at hand, and coinciding with this, that the need for the bastard US military was coming to an end.

So, along with a long string of minor issues, South Korean society went utterly nuts with the illegal dumping of some 20 gallons of fromaldhyde into the Yongsan sewer system - a system that was processed 3 times before it touched the Han River - which Koreans believe is so polluted, they will not eat fish they could catch out of it. I reviewed this item here. The news papers, politicians, and majority of the people went nuts. Literally. They were screaming about the poisoning of 10 million Koreans who get their drinking water from the Han in the Seoul area --- when any idiot who lives in Korea knows everybody has bottled water delivered to their homes. It made no sense.

But, even though the joy of immediate peace with the North has gone down since 2000, the environmental issue has become one of the best long term sources of agitation on the anti-US front --- because it will never go away. If South Korean society can whip itself into a frenzy over 20 gallons of embalming fluid dumped in the Yongsan sewer -- whipped itself into a frenzy to the point attacks began to happen to GIs near bases, until a USFK MD was stabbed to death in the street, much like what happened in 2002, they will ALWAYS find something on a US base to rant about. And that ranting will be useful for the Korean government to use as leverage to lower its costs in any joint US-SK project. So, you have today the US side saying it shouldn't pay a nickle. And so the dance goes on until it is actually time to do some cleaning.

Check out the English section of Green Korea to see what kind of real or false view point a good bit of Korean society is coming at on this issue. The group has branched out more into covering some non-US related environmental issues, but it was primarily an anti-US org which made its bones with the great 2000 water dump.

South Korean lumber companies can get caught dumping tons of chemicals similar to fromaldhyde into the Han as run off from its treating the timber, and they get fined. Illegal squatter restaurants and motels on the Han resevoir can be fined over a period of years for dumping sewage directly into the water, because it is cheaper to pay the fines than install equipment. But, if USFK or the US Embassy has oil contamination similar to any factory or Korean base or apartment building or gas station in Korea ---- it is an international tragedy.

In the end, with these base closings, it will probably work out where the US government, Korean government, and whatever chaebol or city municipality buys the land from the Korean government will split the cost and effort for cleanup, and since two of the three paying will be Korean, it will match the environmental standards of the rest of Korea (to keep costs low).

But, until they actually get down to doing the work, it is going to be a whole lot of hot air.

(See the Yongsan Wasteland review I did too).

Good comments by all! Being on Korean Posts and Bases covering 46 years, I've seen a lot of polluted spots. Some problems trace back to the war, some to pre-war. The Japanese did a lot of it that exists today on Yongsan when they owned it. I have seen Korean employees mishandling chemical and paint disposal, and other items such as gasoline, etc. Many Koreans have no idea of the dangers of such acts on the environment. Also you must understand that they generally DON'T CARE. Safety and hazards are NOT a concern of most humans throughout the third world countries. Concern for self is utmost. Ever been to Italy in the old days? Anything you didn't want was just tossed out the window into the street. Yep, anything. The streets and rivers were not your responsibility. Neat home, smelly street was the norm in Korea in the 60's and later, also. If it is determined that we (the US) did initiate certain pollution , we will probably pay. There will be the usual outcry by the greedy and unschooled as well as some true environmetalists. Some compromise will be reached.
One never really "Wins" a war.

hi all.

I lived on Yongsan south Post in the early 1970s. My father was in the Air Force. At that time, there were open sewers running all over Main and South Posts, rats everywhere (which of course was very cool for us teenagers ), sewers all over Seoul actually, and the Han was itself one large sewer. Both on and off post trucks would drive by in the summer and spray huge clouds of DDT everywhere (and kids would run behind them, playing in the fog). Seoul from a distance always had a brown dome of pollution over it.

My point is that Seoul was--and likely still is--a very polluted area, and I doubt that the US Military played a huge role it that. That said, sure, the US should clean up the messes it made. I just don't think they are very large in the big picture.

Welcome to the Forum Scott and thanks for the insight!

Mike

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