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A wall of a U.S. military base set to be returned to Korea.
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For military bases returned to S.K., U.S. environmental standards will apply
At the 9th round of U.S.-South Korean Security Policy Initiative (SPI) talks in July, during which the return of 15 U.S. military bases to South Korea was discussed, the two sides agreed that only U.S. pollution cleanup standards would apply to the bases. The information was uncovered recently in a National Assembly report. Under such an agreement, a total of 59 military bases will be returned to South Korea by 2011 without any discussion regarding South Korean environmental concerns, especially the hot-button issue of the cleanup of contaminated soil. According to a report submitted to the National Assembly by the Ministry of the Environment on October 11, the South Korean government agreed to the U.S.’s Known, Imminent and Substantial Endangerment to Human Health (KISE) assessment criterion alongside eight additional recovery measures, rather than applying South Korean environmental cleanup standards to the base handover deal. The agreed-upon measures do not differ from the U.S.’s original proposal, unilaterally reported to the Korean government in April. Under the agreement, only subterranean water seriously polluted with oil would be treated under a different set of standards.In regard to the revelations of the report, the Korean representative to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) Environmental Section Committee, and Comprehensive Policy Director of the Ministry of the Environment, Kim Han-ju, said that "the pollution recovery conditions presented at the 9th round of the PSI talks were merely made to fit the situation at that time, and cleanup conditions must continue to be discussed as we proceed." However, even if discussion continues, apart from the limited amount of potentially contaminated subterranean water, it appears that South Korea will face difficulty in requesting additional cleanup measures. As it seems the agreement at the SPI meeting effectively terminated debate on core environmental recovery policy as applied to returned U.S. bases, the issue will most likely spill over into debate in the National Assembly. This article by Kim Jeon-su, translated by Daniel Rakove.
