Naju City in Jeollanam-do is supplying cleaner and safer tap water through the cleaning of aging water pipes.
Naju City (Mayor Yoon Byung-tae) announced on the 17th that it will invest 1 billion KRW from the national subsidy project "Smart Water Network Management Infrastructure Construction" budget to complete the cleaning of aging water pipes in 10 dong and myeon areas by the end of this month.
The cleaning target areas are aging water pipes with a total length of 17,249 meters that have been buried for more than 16 years in the areas of Songwol, Seongbuk, Namnae, Geumnam, Juglim, Namoe, Togye, Samdo-dong, and Geumcheon and Sanpo myeon.
The cleaning method applied is the "Hurricane" technique, which involves draining water and then continuously injecting compressed air and a small amount of water into the pipes in a nearly water-free state to clean the pipes with a typhoon-like wind speed of over 30 m/s.
The city is minimizing citizen inconvenience caused by water supply interruptions during pipe cleaning by posting banners in advance, distributing water outage notices to all households, broadcasting announcements before and after cleaning, and sending text messages.
The work is carried out during nighttime and early morning hours (9 PM to 6 AM) when water usage is low, and the entire cleaning process is continuously monitored in cooperation with the Korea Water Resources Corporation Naju Water Branch to ensure no inconvenience in water use.
Starting from Sanpo and Geumcheon myeon on the 9th, pipe cleaning work will proceed in the remaining sections on the 20th (Geumseong and Namoe-dong), 22nd (Seongbuk, Namnae, Juglim-dong), and 24th (Juglim, Samdo, Togye-dong).
Mayor Yoon Byung-tae said, "Please strictly adhere to the work schedule and ensure thorough prior publicity to prevent any inconvenience to citizens due to water outages caused by cleaning aging pipelines. As this is a task to supply clean and safe tap water, we ask for active cooperation and understanding from the citizens."
Meanwhile, smart water network management is a system that introduces information and communication technology (ICT) throughout the entire tap water supply process to periodically maintain and prevent risks such as rust in the water supply and to respond quickly in case of accidents.
Earlier, thanks to the project selection in 2021, the city invested a total of 5.3 billion KRW (70% national funds, 30% city funds) to complete 10 projects including installation of 14 automatic water quality measurement devices, 7 automatic drains, 1 re-chlorination facility, 1 precision filtration device, and 2 sets of real-time pressure gauges.
Naju = Kim Yuk-bong, Honam Reporting Headquarters, Asia Economy baekok@asiae.co.kr
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