Hwaseong City "Standards for Retention Tanks Must Be Strengthened to Block Contaminated Water from Entering Rivers"

Mayor Jeong Myeong-geun "All-out Effort for Damage Recovery to Help Citizens Return to Daily Life"

Hwaseong City in Gyeonggi Province raised the need to strengthen the standards for retention tank installation to prevent recurrence of river pollution caused by the hazardous material storage warehouse fire that occurred on the 9th.

On the 30th, Hwaseong Mayor Jeong Myeong-geun stated, "Regardless of the failure to designate the area as a special disaster zone, we will do our best to ensure that all affected citizens can return to their daily lives."

Officials from Hwaseong City are conducting damage restoration work at a managed stream in Hwaseong City contaminated by polluted water.
[Photo by Hwaseong City]

Mayor Jeong said, "We will request higher authorities to strengthen the retention tank installation standards by 3 to 4 times compared to the current standards, so that in the event of a similar accident, contaminated water will not flow into the river, institutionalizing this measure."

The city explained that since the time of the accident, contaminated water has been treated according to concentration into ▲commissioned treated wastewater ▲public treated wastewater ▲public treated sewage. The total amount of contaminated water treated so far is 7,728 tons of commissioned treated wastewater, 1,890 tons of public treated wastewater, and 21,360 tons of public treated sewage, totaling 30,978 tons. They added that high-concentration wastewater requiring commissioned treatment has been fully collected.

The city also built a total of 11 embankments in the section connecting the accident site to the management stream and along the management stream to prevent contaminated water from entering the river, and is bypassing 14,000 tons per day of upstream water from the management stream to the water main line through the operation of three pumps.

Meanwhile, Son Im-seong, Deputy Mayor of Hwaseong City, said, "We have requested Gyeonggi Province for additional disaster management fund payments to fully recover from the accident damage."

Meanwhile, according to water quality measurements at the management stream inflow point by the Ministry of Environment, on the day after the fire, the 10th, five specific harmful water quality substances exceeded water quality standards, but currently, all items except suspended solids (SS) have decreased to levels corresponding to clean water quality standards.