Controversial Peace Dam to be converted into Peace Waterway

Posted on : 2018-07-30 15:12 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Project would link inter-Korean watercourses and reignite Mt. Kumgang tourism
Gangwon Province and Hwacheon county has launched the Peace Waterway project
Gangwon Province and Hwacheon county has launched the Peace Waterway project

The Peace Dam, which has been lambasted as a fraud foisted upon the South Korean public, will be reborn as the starting point of a “Peace Waterway” set to link watercourses between South and North Korea. Attention is focusing on whether the Peace Waterway tourism project can replace the overland route to Mt. Kumgang in Goseong County, a previous North Korean tourism project.

Inspired by the recent improvement in inter-Korean relations, Gangwon Province and Hwacheon County announced on July 24 that they’re planning a “peace waterway” tourism program that will link the Peace Dam with Inner Kumgang, the western half of the mountain. The Peace Waterway will take travelers between South and North Korea along the water system of the North Han River, which has been divided between South and North Korea since the Korean War.

Gangwon Province is exploring a tourist course that would take holidaymakers by ferry along the 36km from the Peace Dam to North Korea’s Imnam Dam (also known as the Mt. Kumgang Dam) and then take them 45km overland to Inner Kumgang. Regarded as the highlight of Mt. Kumgang, Inner Kumgang was opened up in 2007 to overland tourism via Goseong County, but the next year a South Korean tourist was shot and killed there, causing tourism to be shut down not only on Inner Kumgang but throughout the mountain.

In order to flesh out this plan, Gangwon Province has allocated 300 million won (US$268,000) for an exploratory review that it plans to launch in August with the Unification Ministry, the Ministry of Environment and the Korea Water Resources Corporation, also called K-Water. This review is supposed to wrap up by March of next year, at which point the provinces are planning to officially propose that the government adopt the waterway as a project for cooperation with North Korea. Once the details are worked out, Gangwon hopes that the project can give the Peace Dam – which has long been little more than a headache – a viable function.

Construction on Peace Dam began in 1987 and was completed in 2005, 18 years later. The administration of Chun Doo-hwan’s justification for building the dam was that North Korea must be stopped from flooding the whole city of Seoul by detonating its dam on the Kumgang River, which the government warned would send flood waters halfway up the 63 Building skyscraper in Yeouido.

All told, the dam cost 399.5 million won (US$356,924) to build. A subsequent investigation by the Board of Audit and Inspection found that Chun had greatly exaggerated the threat of an aquatic onslaught from North Korea in order to undermine public demand for direct presidential elections, which provoked widespread criticism of the entire project.

Since then, Peace Dam has been largely neglected and serves as the only strictly military dam in the world, holding no reservoir and maintained as a contingency plan. If inter-Korean relations continue to improve, it’s likely to become even less useful in the future.

But if the Peace Waterway tourism project goes forward, this military dam is likely to hold a reservoir and be reclassified as a multi-purpose dam like the Soyang River Dam. If it does become a multi-purpose dam, Gangwon Province estimates, Peace Dam will gain new utility, creating 2.63 billion tons of water resources and generating 300 million kWh of electricity.

“The Peace Waterway tourism program would serve the dual purpose of improving inter-Korean relations and utilizing the Peace Dam,” said Kim Dong-gyun, the head of watercourse planning at the Gangwon Provincial Office.

“If there is progress in inter-Korean relations, we intend to set up a team at the county office to pursue peace tourism in cooperation with Gangwon Province,” said Choe Mun-sun, mayor of Hwacheon County.

By Park Su-hyeok, Gangwon Province correspondent reporter

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

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