I would never have expected The Chosun Daily to rebut the environmental arguments the Lee administration is making about the value of the Four Rivers project. But, on an R. Elgin post on the Lee administration’s “Four Rivers Project”, keith disagrees nonetheless, that “it’s a damn good idea”.

There is the argument that endangered flora and fauna will be damaged – This is a very short sighted view, Korea’s environment is already knackered. Waterways are a very good way for different creatures moving around the country. Korea’s rivers have traditionally been a place to dispose of human waste and garbage, that’s hardly conducive to a healthy fish-avian-animal population. Have any of you guys been hiking recently? You’re lucky if you see so much as a small rodent or a few magpies, no deer, no foxes, no bears, few rabbits.

Korea has huge problems managing its water resources, North Korea unleashes a dam and people die! Is that cool? Of course not! By managing Korea’s huge summer monsoon rains and storing them drinking water will be available from the tap, also people will be employed managing the improved river systems. Plus the huge construction protects Korea’s internal economy and keeps working class people gainfully employed.

(…)

There are many beautiful shallow rivers in Korea, how nice it would be to be able to take a boat out and go fishing! It’s very hard to do that right now, most boats don’t like bashing into rocks. Increase the depth of the river and slow the flow and let’s all go fishing for trout and bass! That sounds like a wonderful way to use up a weekend.

Commercial: Britain’s industrial revolution would have never happened without the canal system. Britain’s (really Brunel’s) canal and railway system made this possible, carrying many goods by water is far less wasteful than carrying them in a truck. The British now use their canals for leisure, as do the French. There is nothing nicer than sitting on a canal boat, leisurely cruising down a waterway and supping on a cold beer. Tourists pay up to 2000 USD a week to cruise Britain’s beautiful canals! Other people buy them and live on them.

Firstly, increased tourism seems at odds with keeping South Korean waterways pristine without a national campaign to inform South Koreans about littering and providing staff and resources for policing, especially during peak tourism periods. But, The Chosun Daily offers another argument, that would answer keith;s concerns: renovating existing dams.

When Korea built dams on the Nakdong River in the mid 1980s, the structure was made to withstand 18,000 cubic m of water passing through per second, to be prepared against the worst flooding that can occur only once every 500 years.

Dams being built for the project, however, are designed to withstand floods that can occur every 200 years, equivalent to 23,000 cubic m of waters per second. Torrential summer rains have become much more powerful and the increased amount of surfaces covered by asphalt and concrete in Korea have caused more water to flow directly into rivers and tributaries instead of being absorbed into the ground.

The Nakdong River is so low that a person can walk across it in the dry season. The Yeongsan River has also virtually dried up because people in the upper tributaries siphon the water off as tap water and for irrigation. Creating dams and riverbed sills greatly helps the collection of water. Polluted silt that came from factories between the 1960s and 80s has been collecting on riverbeds, and it is time to clean it up. Farming on the sides of rivers also impedes efforts to boost the water quality.

Secondly, keith’s argument about canals is a species of first world envy, many late-comers exhibit. Just because Great Britain did it in the past doesn’t mean South Korea has to do it now. The counter-example is cellular phones, that eliminated the need for developing states to construct towers strung with telephone cables all over their territories. That’s if, that is, there were a compelling argument for infrastructure anyway.

The Economist is defter on the political machinations going on between the Lee administration and the provinces.

At a cost of some 22.2 trillion won (around US$19 billion), the initiative is aimed at upgrading and repairing the country’s four main rivers. Though budget hawks hate it, and environmentalists call it a terrible case of “greenwashing” and worse, President Lee Myung-bak is pressing on regardless.

This puts him in direct conflict with two powerful new opponents: the recently-elected provincial governors Ahn Hee-jung and Kim Du-kwan. Mr Kim’s province, South Gyeongsang, is the site of 13 of the 54 sites at which the Four Rivers project calls for work to be done by local authorities. Naturally, the central government is leaning heavily on Mr Kim to support the project.

But Mr Kim has already halted work in some places. Mr Ahn too is considering halting work on four sites along the Geum river, prompting an ultimatum from Seoul: both men were told to declare whether they will participate by the end of the week, Friday August 6th, or else face the shame of seeing the central government coming and doing the job for them.

Mr Ahn snapped that it was “rude” of the government not to have discussed the matter adequately with him before it issued its threat. He had recently told me in an interview that he was concerned the project is not so much aimed at improving the water supply or preventing floods as it is a matter of satisfying the president’s desire to embark on a massive “New Deal”-style spending mission, to turn himself into a kind of latter-day FDR. Nonetheless, Mr Ahn was the one to back down, when push came to shove: work is going to resume at the four dredging sites in South Chungcheong after all. Read all about it in Dredging Today (“The industry’s ground-breaking news provider”, groan.) Mr Ahn’s provincial government will reserve the right to “come up with alternatives” if they run into problems implementing the central government’s project.

Dredging Today furthers narrates the political impasse between the ruling party and the Democratic party.

While the central government has promoted the massive development programs along the Han, Geum, Nakdong and Yeongsan rivers as part of a grand project to improve the environment and create jobs, the opposition Democratic Party has been skeptical of its effectiveness.

“Work has progressed significantly on the four sites along the Geum River in South Chungcheong,” said Kim Jong-min, deputy governor of the province. “In those sites, where there were no plans to build reservoirs or dredge mud from the river, we have no reason to oppose the construction at this time.”

The province has asked the Land Ministry to allow it to survey the project to propose modifications to the government by the end of September.

With South Chungcheong’s policy shift, South Gyeongsang province is now the only region that opposes the project. Kim Du-kwan, newly elected governor and a former Democrat, had made his opposition an election pledge and suspended construction at some sites in his province after he assumed the post.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party said yesterday that the project should be scaled down, saying some of the funding earmarked for construction should be diverted for education and welfare programs.

In a press conference at the National Assembly, the DP’s special committee said the state-led construction programs along the Han, Geum, Nakdong and Yeongsan rivers were inappropriately designed, with the potential that the projects would harm the environment rather than improve it.

“The government said the goals of the project were preventing floods, securing water resources, improving water quality and creating jobs,” said Rep. Lee Mi-kyung, who heads the committee. “And yet, the current construction plans do not satisfy the stated goals.”

Demanding that the project be modified and money be reallocated, Lee said the National Assembly should form a verification committee before the project proceeds any further. She said landscaping and dredging plans should be minimized and the government should pay more attention to improving the environment along the tributaries of major rivers.

The DP presented its version of a development plan for the Geum River in South Chungcheong yesterday, promising to present modifications for the three other rivers.

The Democrats said the 1.7 trillion won ($1.46 billion) earmarked for the Geum River development includes many unnecessary programs, claiming that the party’s new development blueprint will save at least 134 billion won.

This doesn’t sound like competent planning, but rather two rival parties, forced by an adversarial electoral system, to make spiteful rejoinders to each other for narrow electoral gains, without in any way asking what the optimal solution to a problem might be. The charge about Lee and his “New Deal” legacy is especially disturbing, as is keith’s need to emulate past development projects. What the Four Rivers boondoggle means is, that South Koreans cannot learn from others, even with centuries to form an opinion, and are just as prone to the petty political animosities any political establishment faces.

Filed under: Business/Economy, Environment, Korea, Politics, Subscriptions Tagged: canals, democratic party, four rivers project, geum, grand national party, han, lee myung bak, nakdong, rok, South Korea, yeongsan