hankyoreh

Flooding in a village caused by a concrete wall around Osan Air Base built by USFK on July 16, 2017. (provided by the Pyeongtaek Peace Center)

In late 2016, US Forces Korea (USFK) began building a 3m high concrete wall around Osan Air Base (K-55) in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province. Ahead of the rainy season in 2017, residents living near the base submitted a complaint in which they said the concrete wall posed a risk of blocking the flow of rainwater and causing flooding during heavy rains.

After two meetings with USFK, the city of Pyeongtaek conducted an on-site survey around the wall. The meetings ended up with the two sides agreeing that the existing drainage system posed a flooding risk and needed improvements, along with an increase in storm water pipelines. But the USFK and Pyeongtaek differed on who should take responsibility for the construction. The USFK maintained that the issue was a matter outside its base and that Pyeongtaek should assume responsibility.

On July 4, 2017, the city sent an official notice to Osan Air Base requesting its cooperation on improvements to the rainwater drainage system and asking for it to reply with its proposed measures and opinions. Early in the morning on July 16 – 12 days after Pyeongtaek sent its notice – the village of Jangdeung in Seotan Township near Osan Air Base suffered flooding due to heavy rains. Residents and the city once again demanded the USFK “carry out drainage system improvements to prevent similar episodes from happening again.” But no follow-up measures had yet been established when a second round of flooding damage occurred amid heavy rains two weeks later on July 31.

In November 2017, residents of the flooded areas filed suit to demand compensation from the state. During the lawsuit, the USFK claimed that the city of Pyeongtaek had been at fault, while the city countered that the fault was the USFK’s. The residents have yet to receive compensation.

“The flood damage around Jangdeung Village was ultimately the result of mistakes by the USFK, which failed to take resident safety into account,” said Im Yun-gyeong, secretary-general of the Pyeongtaek Peace Center, which has worked to address issues related to USFK bases.

”The people living around US bases have to put up with noise pollution and vibrations from US military aircraft, oil leaks, environmental contamination, and crimes and culture clash involving US troops,” she said.

“Because of the difficulty accessing information about the US military, incidents involving the USFK go almost entirely unknown unless they are very severe,” she added.

Flooding in a village caused by a concrete wall around Osan Air Base built by USFK on July 16, 2017. (provided by the Pyeongtaek Peace Center)

On the afternoon of Oct. 22, Im gave a presentation at Cheongam Hall on the third floor of the Hankyoreh’s offices in Seoul on the topic of USFK bases today and related problem areas at the “Forum for Exploring a Shift in the South Korea-US Alliance,” an event co-organized by the Civil Peace Forum, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, and the Hankyoreh Unification and Culture Foundation. As solutions for US military base-related issues, proposed amending environment-related provisions in the South Korea-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and increased authority and roles for local governments.

More specifically, Im maintains that SOFA should include provisions applying domestic environmental laws to US military bases and mandating efforts to restore environmentally contaminated areas to their original condition at the US military’s expense. Because surveys within the bases are needed to identify contamination sources, guarantees are also needed on the mandatory announcement of environmental contamination incidents and the right to investigate the scene of such incidents. Article 5 of the current Joint Environmental Information Exchange and Access Procedures stipulates that the approval of both the South Korean and US SOFA environmental subcommittee chairs is needed before any information is provided to the press, most environmentally related information about US military bases goes undisclosed.

“This regulation should be deleted or amended. Not only is it the right of local residents to have accurate information about contamination at USFK bases, but it is also consistent with the current administration’s approach of transparency in governance,” Im said.

While the central government has matters of foreign affairs and national security to consider when discussing USFK-related incidents with the US, local governments are relatively free from the burden of diplomatic and security-related concerns. Im stressed that local governments “need to hold the US military accountable for contamination incidents that have effects outside of the US military bases and vocally demand the cleaning of contaminated sites and compensation for damages.” Her message is that for the sake of residents’ health and safety, local governments in areas with US military bases must continue pushing US military authorities to disclose information and insisting on their right to access the bases for surveys.

By Kwon Hyuk-chul, director of the Hankyoreh Peace Research Institute

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]