-Caveat Lector- From http://english.joins.com/nk/article.asp?aid=20020708100820&sid=E 00
December 30, 2002 KST 04:32 (GMT+9) Politics, or a real dam threat? by Koh Han-sun July 08, 2002 Floods caused by torrential rainfalls cause havoc on the South Korea every summer, the period in which two-thirds of the country's entire annual precipitation is concentrated. This year, however, Korea may face yet another water disaster after reports that Imnam Dam, otherwise known as Geumgangsan Dam, located on the Bukhan River in North Korea is at risk of collapse. The Ministry of Construction and Transportation found early this year that the top of the dam had a breach 20 meters wide and 15 meters deep. It had taken a closer look at the dam after the water inflow behind the Hwacheon Dam in the South suddenly increased from two metric tons per second to 273 tons from Jan. 17 to Feb. 4. North Korean began building the Imnam Dam in October 1986 as a hydroelectric project. It completed a 45-kilometer long waterway passing through the Taebaek Mountains to the Yeonbyeon Cheongnyeon power generation plant near the east coast in June 1996. The waterway carries water stored behind the Imnam Dam to the power generation facility. Construction of the dam itself started in June 1999. Sixteen months later, the dam had reached 88 meters in height and had a water storage capacity of 910 million metric tons of water. According to the Construction Ministry, North Korea said the fully completed dam would stand 121.5 meters high and have a capacity of 2.62 billion tons of water. Reports about the initiation of the Imnam Dam project in 1986 triggered security measures by the Chun Doo Hwan administration here. The government said then that judging from the location and size of the dam, Pyeongyang intended to use the dam to threaten Seoul with flooding in order to sabotage the 1988 Olympics. Although those fears were not universally accepted as valid, neither were they dismissed out of hand. Government-influenced newspapers and television news broadcasts carried unnerving reports about the potential damage to Seoul and expert skepticism was downplayed in the media. Largely due to that coverage and widespread anticommunist public sentiment, South Koreans applauded the government's plan to build the Peace Dam as a structure to contain any flood that might be unleashed. People flocked to donate money for construction; children donated their allowances and a policeman gave reward money. Seoul began work on the 151 billion won ($125 million) Peace Dam project in May 1988. The 80-meter dam was to have had a capacity of 590 million tons of water. Contributions accounted for about half of the construction cost. But later, criticism began to mount about the project because it had neither hydroelectric nor flood control capabilities. The dam and the North's flood threats were mostly forgotten until a parliamentary hearing in 1993 that reinforced suspicions that the flap was generated by the Chun administration to divert attention from demands by the opposition for a referendum on constitutional revisions. But a decade later, it seems that the Peace Dam could still be of some use. A Construction Ministry investigation of the Imnam Dam cracks suggested that the North Korean project might have been rushed and shoddily built. The spillway is still five meters higher than the dam's current height of 105 meters, raising concern that water could flow over the top of the dam and erode it during rainy seasons. To counter the danger, the Korea Water Resource Corporation said, it has reinforced the Peace Dam to withstand any onrush of water. But a deliberate or accidental flooding is not the only problem blamed on the Imnam Dam. Since it began to fill in 1996, the water flowing to the Hwacheon Dam has fallen dramatically. In addition, said Jeong Chan- gyun, a planning division official in Gangwon province, "Freshwater fisheries have decreased and water quality has became worse, leading to a drop in tourists at local sashimi restaurants in Hwacheon-gun." One energy official says, however, that the North Koreans may not be the entire cause of the problem. Jeong Hyeon-cheol, an official of Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co., said, "The Hwacheon Dam has never suspended hydroelectric operations because of a shortage of water in the reservoir. The area suffered from a severe drought last year, which makes it difficult at the moment to blame North Korean dams for the lowered water level." Weather data shows that precipitation in 2001 was only 70 percent of a normal year's rain and snowfall. The power generating company said water inflow at the Hwacheon Dam ranged from 3.2 to 6.75 billion tons for the season during the dry seasons of 1991 to 1994. But there was an obvious drop of water inflow after the North completed the initial construction of the Imnam Dam ?2.65 billion metric tons in the dry season of November 1995 to April 1996. The dam had water inflow of 1.81 billion tons during the dry season of 1996, 5.21 billion tons in 1997, 2.53 billion tons in 1998, 3.14 billion tons in 1999 and 1.18 billion tons in 2000. And even though the Hwacheon Dam has not stopped generating power, it is generating less: 65.6 gigawatts of power during the 2000-2001 dry season compared with 127 gigawatts of electricity in the dry season of 1992-93. The ministry says the Peace Dam could hold 590 million tons of surging water should the Imnam Dam collapse and the Hwacheon Dam another 560 million tons to prevent the lower reaches of Bukhan River from flooding. The ministry also wants to talk with the north about the dam, but the North Koreans canceled a meeting at which the subject was to have been discussed. There was a discharge of 331 million metric tons of water from the Imnam Dam during June; the North notified Seoul of the discharge -- to prepare for the rainy season, Pyeongyang said -- in advance. But some experts still say that needed steps have not been taken out of concern for keeping the administration's sunshine policy toward the North alive. A<:>E<:>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forwarded as information only; everything sent has to stand on its own merits, not on my recommendation. Dissenting ideas are the health of the American system. 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