Supplying Harmful Service Water for Three Years

Ulsan City has supplied city water, which exceeded the standard limit of harmful objects to its citizens for about three years, by forging inspected results.

On April 1, it said, “We took disciplinary measures on 11 related officers, including the director of the Office of Waterworks, Lee Jin-suk, because it was revealed that they made up the results of the special inspection on service water.”

According to Ulsan City, the Office of Waterworks examined Bumseo Filtration Plant in Ulju District and discovered that its civic water contained more boron (B), which could have negative effects on the digestive system, than the standard limit (0.3ppm).

However, the Office of Waterworks instead reported to Ministry of Environment the result (0.15ppm) it obtained from the Chunsang Filtration Plant, which is three km away from Bunseo. It also altered the number to 0.18ppm for June 2002 and March 2002 after inspecting the Bumseo clean water system.

In addition, it didn’t inform anything when it detected tetraclorodetilen level (0.02) at more than double the standard (0.01), which is classified as a carcinogen and harmful chemical object from underground water, at the Nongso Filtration Plant in the North District during July and December of 2001.

The fact was also revealed that it asked water inspection from a university not authorized by the Ministry of Environment from 1999 to 2002 and distributed public information stating that every item was below the standard according to a university environmental laboratory’s inspection, after examining by itself or forging the record.

Civic environmental groups raised suspicion about these facts, however, and the Office of Waterworks denied them, saying, “It is totally groundless.”

raks@donga.com