Speed up construction
Government announces candidate sites of dams to respond to climate change
The government on Tuesday announced 14 candidate sites for dams to be built or redeveloped.
Four are in the Han River area, six in the Nakdong River area, one in the Geum River area, and three in the Yeongsan and Seomjin Rivers area.
The decision has overturned the declaration by the Moon Jae-in administration six years ago that it would no longer build government-initiated large dams.
Three of the 14 envisioned dams are multipurpose dams, seven are for flood control and four are for water supply. It would be the first time in 14 years that multipurpose dams will be built.
Unusual weather due to climate change has become a global phenomenon, and South Korea is no exception. Considering the country suffered great damage from torrential rain and severe droughts, the decision to add dams looks inevitable.
In 2022, Typhoon Hinnamnor caused a stream in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, to overflow, flooding thre
e underground parking lots of nearby apartment buildings and residential areas. Nine died and one went missing. All three furnaces of POSCO, the country’s top steelmaker, were also inundated and shut down for the first time in 49 years.
In the same year, the southwestern region including Gwangju and South Jeolla Province suffered a 227-day drought, the longest in half a century. The area suffered a shortage of water for residential use, and industrial complexes were on the brink of shutdown.
Last month, heavy rain poured onto Paju, Gyeonggi Province (873 millimeters), Buyeo, South Chungcheong Province (809 mm) and Iksan, North Jeolla Province (704 mm). The figures are more than half of the annual average precipitation there.
Over the past three years, torrential rain has caused more than 1.6 trillion won ($1.15 billion) in damage and loss of 85 lives.
If there had been more multipurpose or flood-control dams, the damage could have been reduced.
Each envisioned dam, once completed, should be capable of ha
ndling a single rainfall event of up to 220 millimeters.
The 14 dams will increase the annual water supply capacity by 250 million metric tons, sufficient to meet the water needs of 2.2 million people.
A large semiconductor cluster requiring massive water is under construction in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Dams are needed not just to respond to climate change but also to secure the competitiveness of strategically important industries.
The decision to build dams is meaningful in that it normalizes the Moon government’s misguided policy on water resource management.
The Moon government stigmatized President Lee Myung-bak’s Four Major Rivers Restoration Project as “old evils to clean up,” dismantled some barrages along the Geum and Yeongsan rivers and kept others open constantly.
It also suspended the construction of two dams in the Chungcheong provinces.
And yet the improvements in water quality and the environment that were used to justify the policy did not happen. Instead, it worsened flood damage, es
pecially in Chungcheong and Jeolla provinces.
Constructing dams will take more than a decade. Even if construction begins now, there would be no means to reduce floods or drought damage pending construction. The government should try to shorten the construction period as much as possible.
One of the biggest obstacles to dam construction is opposition by environmental groups. The four-river project met strong opposition from environment advocates and politicians who sympathized with them. If major rivers had not been refurbished at the time, the country would have suffered much greater damage from floods.
As a rule, the environment should be protected, but if development benefits are great and indispensable, there is no other choice. It is inevitable to develop dams while minimizing environmental destruction. Environmentalists should think about damage from extreme weather first. They must not try to disrupt the construction of dams. That only harms the country and its people.
Opposition parties should vie
w dam construction in light of the inevitability of responding to climate change. They must not repeat such errors as dismantling barrages on major rivers.
Source: Yonhap News Agency