Will a Small Airfield Be Built on Heuksando Island? ... Shinan-gun Submits Amendment Proposal

A Place Visited by 360,000 People Annually Including Annexed Islands... At Least 50 Flight Cancellations per Year on Average

Repeatedly Blocked by the National Park Committee under the Ministry of Environment, Stalled for Years

Military Subm

Location map of Heuksan Airport construction (Photo by Sinan-gun)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Seo Young-seo] To reach Heuksando, located in Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do, the southwesternmost part of the country, it takes 2 hours by express ferry from Mokpo, and 4 hours to Gageodo.

Heuksando and other islands located in the open sea are places where all passenger ship operations are suspended without fail when wave heights exceed 2.5 meters due to a 'warning alert.'

On average, cancellations occur for as few as about 50 days and as many as about 110 days per year.

Therefore, even when emergency patients occur, people are left helpless, and tourists are also stranded.

About 4,200 residents live here, and the area suffers from poor transportation conditions.

Recently, when a COVID-19 confirmed patient visited Heuksando and Hongdo, about 80 local residents had to undergo testing due to direct or indirect contact, but due to the storm warning, it took 3 to 4 days, causing residents to spend sleepless nights filled with fear and anxiety.

The proposed solution to this is the construction of a small-scale airport, a long-cherished project of Sinan-gun, Jeollanam-do.

Despite the urgent desire to build a small-scale airport to secure the mobility rights of island residents, the project has been stalled for years due to the review by the National Park Committee under the Ministry of Environment.

It has repeatedly been blocked due to reasons such as being located within a national park.

According to Sinan-gun on the 15th, the county has been promoting the construction of a small-scale airport on Heuksando since 2009 to improve accessibility to Heuksando and its affiliated islands, which attract 360,000 visitors annually, and to provide basic transportation rights to residents.

The Heuksando small-scale airport construction project involves an investment of 183.3 billion KRW to build facilities including a small runway 1.2 km long and 30 m wide on a 547,646㎡ site within the Dadohaehaesang National Park on Heuksando.

Once the Heuksando small-scale airport opens, the travel time from Seoul to Heuksando, which currently takes over 7 hours, is expected to be reduced to about 1 hour.

However, the Heuksando airport construction project must pass the Ministry of Environment’s National Park Committee’s review of the plan change due to concerns over damage to the national park’s value, migratory bird protection measures, and safety issues.

The National Park Committee has held several meetings from 2016 until last year, but the review has been continuously postponed due to conflicting opinions on economic feasibility, safety, and environmental impact.

Ultimately, Sinan-gun judged that it would be difficult for the plan change regarding the Heuksando airport site to pass due to opposition from private committee members who prioritize environmental concerns, and even requested that Heuksando be excluded entirely from the national park.

In response, as a realistic alternative, the county submitted a plan to exclude the 1.21㎢ Heuksando airport site from the national park and instead provide 5.32㎢ of tidal flats in the Sinan area, which is 4.3 times larger, as a substitute area for national park inclusion.

The National Park Committee’s review is expected to decide on this amendment early this year.

A Sinan-gun official said, “Even developing countries formed by nearby islands build small airports within national parks to guarantee residents’ quality of life,” adding, “It is a very unfortunate reality that in our country, alternative transportation means cannot be secured due to concerns about damaging the value of national parks.”

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