Critical Need for River Dredging
Restoration of rivers and their streams necessary to make them hold water as much as they can
Manager Lee Young-tae of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. in charge of the 6th section, 4th Yeoju subsection of the Han River Restoration Project in an interview with NewsWorld discusses the pressing need for dredging of the river beds to make the river deeper and wider to contain the water in the river at a proper level so that streams connected to the large river would have enough water flowing, the manager said. The project is part of the bigger project to slowdown the speed of rain water flowing into the sea so that enough water would be available for the general use in the country. He said because of the special characteristics of the topography in Korea with high mountains on the east and plains on the west of the country, rain water drains into the seas within three days from their fall, leaving not enough water on land. He warns that water would be a critical natural resource for the survival of a country in the near future and we have to secure enough water for our survival, he warns. Following are an excerpts from the written interview:
Question: The rivers in Korea have never been dredged thoroughly in history and lately floods and drought have been occurring repeatedly due to climate change. What about deepening the river bed to 1.5 meters through dredging and widen the river so that the water reserve rate of the river would rise to cope with floods and drought?
Answer: In order to govern the country well, mountains and rivers should be well managed. This year, rain fell very much and we spend over 1 billion won to remove the pollutants and tree deposits from the river. Work is not difficult as I am an expert, but I am tired by the NGO people coming to the worksite . The entire water in the dam will not rot as they claim because the quality of water will improve when deposits are removed through dredging and water flows get better.
From ancient times, due to Korea¡¯s unique topography with high mountain ranges in the east and lower plains in the west, rain water will flow out to the sea in three days needing water management not only in the flooding season, but also in the dry season as well through dredging. In order to be able to manage both flooding and drying spell, we have to build river streams.
These days, however, due to concentrated heavy rain, flood water needs no time to reach the main stream waters leaving not enough time to reserve water. The number of streams in Korea come only to 0.2 percent of the entire land. As it takes more money to build streams, we have to build them fast and dredge both main rivers and streams at the same time to save costs.
Of the total budgets allocated, 21 percent is for environmental maintenance construction and the allocation for main project is 79 percent. The depth of the Han River when dredging is done will be from seven to eight meters deep from the current three meters. It is comparable to cleaning dirty clothes and patching them up to make them look good again. Currently some two thirds of the streams have been unable to play their expected roles and we have to revive their original functions. Yeoju-gun has large arable land and many golf courses and suffer form the lack of water during the dry seasons which number 187 days in the year. But the government has not dredged the streams so far because there are many farms along the streams.
But this time, we have been able to build banks on both sides of the streams and fixed boundaries for the streams correctly. In order to manage them more effectively, the government bought private land along the streams. The government bought also the mud flats made by deposits linked to banks so high such as Kangchoen Islet with 140,000 pyeong in size, Samamri Islet with 110,000 pyeong and others and dredged them thoroughly so that the islets can recover their original forms and water can flow again as it did long time ago.
Q: What about the budget?
A: The allocated budget for construction came to 32 percent of the total with the rest going to such projects as dam construction, and water reserves repairs, among others. With priority going to construction under the government economic development plans, they took away sands in the steams leaving pebbles only, which caused the deposits to rise so high to hide the water.
In the United States, too, they dredged the major rivers and built dams so than people can live along the land by the rivers such as the Mississippi River and the Hoover Dam. They predicted that the price of water would rise very much come 2020 due to climate change causing even wars for water. Even now, the Evian bottled water is more expensive than others due to its good quality. We have to secure water from streams and make smaller streams have enough water.
In the future, nations that have enough water will win. In the past, we used to have 1,380 mm of rain on annual average, but these days, heavy down falls can bring that much rain making us harder to secure water in reserves and use them when needed.
Our current Stream Environment Renovation Project includes the project to improve streams to cleans them of waste water from animal farms, plans and other tainted water which costs the government much.
We knew that even the government can¡¯t carry out the Four Rivers Restoration Project at the same time at once. We have been working on the current project for over a year now and I have been back at home only five times during the year working on 24-hour shifts with pride in our country and in ourselves. We don¡¯t care about what ¡°Min-no-chong¡± says.
The progress of our project, on the dredging side is 60 percent complete, the construction of weirs 60 percent and next year, all of them would reach 90 percent level with overall renovation project 44 percent finished. Hyundai Construction mobilized 150 workers into the project.
Hyundai E&C won the 45 percent of the project in Oct. 27 through an opening bidding jointly with seven other builders including Samwhan, Dong-A, Doohan, Seohi and Boram, among others.
The project, which is to be finished in December, 2011,include the construction of weirs, dredging, river banks, protective facilities for bridges, water gates, strengthening water pools, ecological work, cultural and art facilities, roads for bicycles, small hydro-electric dams in the section of the Han River near Yeoju-gun. The entire project to restore the Han River is worth 268.5 billion won. nw
Photos show a variety of work by Hyundai Construction as part of the Han River Restoration Project that the company won including dredging and construction of banks and weirs in the river. Hyundai E&C Project Manager Lee Young-tae in charge of the 6th section, 4th Yeoju subsection of the Han River Restoration Project.
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