An oil slick was discovered in a part of the Yongsan Park site, which the government opened to the public as a demonstration project last month. The oil slick was found inside a monitoring well, which is believed to have been dug by the U.S. Forces Korea to inspect the ground water in the past. The monitoring well is a hole used to collect samples to measure the water level and water quality of the ground water. Environmental groups criticized the government for hastily opening the contaminated site without any proper cleanup operations.

According to the data collected after monitoring the temporarily opened Yongsan Park site, which Green Korea released on July 14, several monitoring wells were discovered in the site of the former USFK commanders’ quarters, which was opened to the public last month. These wells were neglected and not capped. The caps of some monitoring wells were removed and lying around in other places, and some monitoring wells were not filled up with sand or cement.

Kim Hui-jung (director of the Ea-Gaia Soil and Sediment Environment Restoration Institute), an expert on soil contamination visited the site on June 19 and said, “If the monitoring well is left unsealed, pollutants can enter from outside spreading the soil contamination and the pollutants inside the well could evaporate into the air.” According to Kim, monitoring wells no longer used for monitoring should be filled with cement or sealed tight so they can’t be opened from the outside, but these final procedures were not properly conducted in some monitoring wells found inside the site opened to the public.

The Ministry of Environment also acknowledged some of these facts. A ministry official spoke with the reporter over the phone and said, “We confirmed the existence of a small number of monitoring wells that had already been dug (believed to have been installed by the U.S. military) during the environmental survey. I believe these were discovered.” The official further said, “Currently, there is no trace of the monitoring wells dug by the environmental ministry (to inspect the level of contamination in the U.S. base), since we completely filled them with sand after the inspection.”

Green Korea said that they even discovered an oil slick in the site where the commanders’ quarters were located. A picture taken by the environmental group shows an opaque oil slick inside a monitoring well close enough to be observed with the naked eye. Bae Je-seon, an activist on a Green Korea task force to respond to the Yongsan Base said, “When we opened the rubber cap of a monitoring well, we saw the oil slick and there was a strong oil smell, too.” Bae further said, “We could also see that the edges of the rubber cap had corroded.” Kim explained that it was likely that (toxic) gases, which could trigger chemical decomposition, were released from inside the monitoring well where the oil slick was spotted, damaging the rubber cap.

Green Korea believes the oil slick found in the monitoring well is proof of the oil leak that occurred in the U.S. base in the past. According to the Environmental Survey and Risk Assessment Report by the environmental ministry, which investigated the contamination level of the site of the commanders’ quarters, there were a total of four oil leaks in this area alone. Among them two were large accidents categorized as “serious”--1,136 liters of oil leaked in 2002 and 2,339 liters of oil leaked in 2004. Bae said, “The attitude displayed by the government was inappropriate--pushing ahead and opening the park simply with the words, ‘It is safe,’ without any effort to clean up the polluted base.”

An official from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said, “I’ve never heard of this (exposed monitoring wells) before. We will have to check the site and identify the situation before responding to the problem,” and added, “We will have the party who caused the problem (neglected the monitoring wells) take action, but we will not neglect the wells even if we cannot identify the responsible party.”