Chuncheon Former US military unit, 32 oil tanks on the ground … Traces of waste dumps reappear

On the afternoon of the 27th, dozens of oil tanks were found on the grounds of Camp Page, the site of a former US military base in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do. [사진 춘천시]

Dozens of oil tanks were discovered at the site of a former US military base, Camp Page in Chuncheon, Gangwon.

The city of Chuncheon announced on the 27th that it discovered 32 18.9-liter oil tanks in the process of excavating cultural properties for the development of the old camp site and began preserving them on site. The oil tank was found at the point between the runway and the hangar when US troops were stationed.

In the city of Chuncheon, 27 of the 32 oil tanks were pulled out of the ground and stacked near the discovery site, and 5 were left buried for preservation at the site. Also, 6 to 7 of them are in plastic containers to avoid oil leakage due to oil tank damage.

A Chuncheon city official said: “In the process of excavating the cultural properties, the oil tanks came out one by one, and at first I took them out of the ground and piled them close together.” In anticipation of more oil tanks coming out in the future, we plan to intensively investigate the runway area. ”

On the afternoon of the 27th, dozens of oil tanks were found on the grounds of Camp Page, the site of a former US military base in Chuncheon, Gangwon-do. [사진 춘천시]

When the oil tank was discovered, the city of Chuncheon informed the Ministry of National Defense and the Korea Rural Community Corporation of this fact and began to understand the oil tank recovery process. It was investigated that the oil tank left the area around the area where the Ministry of Defense commissioned the Korea Rural Community Corporation to carry out environmental clean-up work after the unit’s closure, and at that time it was excluded from the area of environmental cleaning.

Earlier in May, soil contamination of up to six times the standard value was reported near the point where the oil tank was found. At that time, the city of Chuncheon commissioned the Gangwon-do Health and Environment Research Institute to analyze components when a layer of contaminated soil was discovered. As a result, the level of total petroleum-based hydrocarbons (TPH) was found to exceed the standard value (500 mg per kg) by more than 6 times at 3083 mg per kg.

The site of the camp page is 56,000 m2 in Geunhwa and Soyang-dong, Chuncheon-si, and was returned after the US troops withdrew in 2005. Subsequently, cleanup work was carried out from 2009 to 2012, But soil contamination in some areas exceeded the standard level, generating controversy over insolvency.

Currently, the city of Chuncheon is promoting the formation of a private verification team for re-verification with the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of the Environment and the Citizen Countermeasures Committee. Citizen Communication Officer Cho Chang-wan said, “When the private soil contamination verification team is formed on the former camp page in November, we will carry out a detailed investigation of the entire site.”

Chuncheon = Reporter Park Jinho [email protected]