Gyeonggi Environmental Management Office Catches 36 'Yamche' Companies Secretly Dumping Heavy Metals

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi Province has caught companies secretly dumping wastewater containing heavy metals.

The Gyeonggi Provincial Metropolitan Environmental Management Office announced on the 6th that from the 13th to the 24th of last month, it conducted a public-private joint inspection of about 100 metal processing companies around Siheungcheon and Singilcheon in the Siwha Banwol Industrial Complex and found 36 business sites violating the Water Environment Conservation Act and other regulations.

The types of violations detected include 10 cases of operating unauthorized wastewater discharge facilities, 7 cases of unauthorized wastewater leakage, 15 cases exceeding wastewater discharge standards, and 4 other cases.

The province imposed sanctions including suspension of operations on 16 sites, cessation of use on 10 sites, improvement orders on 6 sites, and warnings on 2 sites. For 16 serious violations such as wastewater leakage into public waters, investigations were requested from the prosecution.

Additionally, for 7 business sites that significantly exceeded wastewater discharge standards, the province plans to impose suspension of operations along with excess discharge charges amounting to approximately 1.3 billion KRW.

Company A in Seonggok-dong, Danwon-gu, Ansan City, is under investigation for illegally treating wastewater containing chromium, a specific harmful water pollutant, at levels over 1,000 times the standard through an underground discharge outlet.

Business sites that operated unreported washing facilities or discharged wastewater exceeding the BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) standard by 41 times due to improper wastewater treatment plant operation were also detected.

A representative of the Metropolitan Environmental Management Office said, "This crackdown was able to precisely track pollution sources by deploying equipment such as CCTV and a newly developed heavy metal testing kit."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.