The government officially announced its plan to construct five dams on the 27th: Jicheon Dam in Cheongyang and Buyeo counties of South Chungcheong Province, Amicheon Dam in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi Province, and Gohyeoncheon Dam in Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do. This comes more than two years after the previous Yoon Suk-yeol administration released a draft plan for 14 dams in July 2024. In the meantime, construction was cancelled for seven dams: three under the previous administration and four under the current one. If we cannot even establish a minimum safety measure like flood control plans amidst record-breaking heatwaves, prolonged droughts, and torrential rains not seen in 200 years, we will be left helpless against the climate crisis.
The Jicheon Dam, whose construction plan with a storage capacity of 59 million tons was officially formalized this time, is linked to the Chungcheong region's mega-project. This is because water supply is urgently needed to advance semiconductor, secondary battery, and bio-industry projects. Additionally, neighboring Cheongyang and Buyeo counties have been declared special disaster areas for four consecutive years due to floods and torrential rains, serving a purpose of disaster preparedness. For this reason, Park Soo-hyun, the Governor of South Chungcheong Province who opposed construction while serving as a member of the opposition party, has reversed his stance in support as a local government head. The Gohyeoncheon Dam plans to secure a maximum flood control capacity of 620,000 tons, and recent torrential rains in Geoje, Gyeongsangnam-do, influenced the finalization of the construction plan. Between the 16th and 17th, a total of 927.6mm of rain fell on Geoje over two days, recorded as a once-in-200-years concentrated downpour.
Originally, the previous administration's plan to build 14 dams was also closely linked to natural disasters. Following record-breaking droughts lasting up to 227 days in southern regions in 2022 and subsequent floods, along with extreme torrential rains of 141.5mm per hour in central regions, the government hastily revived a plan from ten years ago. However, less than a year after the construction plan was announced, the ruling party changed, and due to conflicts between development arguments and environmental protection theories, dam construction began to be re-examined from scratch. Even afterward, disasters such as droughts and water shortages in Gangneung, Gangwon-do, continued last year.
This is not the first time that large-scale national projects like dam construction have been overturned depending on the administration. The 'Long-term Dam Construction Plan' released by the Lee Myung-bak administration in 2012 was halted by the Moon Jae-in administration in 2018. Building a dam takes nearly 20 years from finalizing the construction plan, persuading residents, to completion, yet cases of reversal every 5 to 10 years depending on the administration keep repeating. In a situation where climate change is severe, policies regarding water basins and water resources must be approached seriously from the perspective of public welfare and science rather than partisan bias.
in OPINION
