Seoul City Intensifies Monitoring of Unauthorized Wastewater Discharges During Lunar New Year Holiday... Special Surveillance on 3,025 Pollution-Related Facilities

Designated as 'Special Monitoring Period for Environmental Pollution Acts' until the 14th... Strengthened Inspections in 1st and 2nd Phases Before and During the Holiday

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] Seoul City announced on the 1st that it will designate the period until the 14th as a ‘Special Monitoring Period for Environmental Pollution Acts’ during the Lunar New Year holiday and will conduct special monitoring activities on 3,025 pollution-related facilities and major rivers.

This special monitoring is carried out in two phases before and during the Lunar New Year holiday to prevent illegal environmental pollution acts such as unauthorized discharge of wastewater, which exploit the holiday period when management and supervision are weak.

The first phase, until the 10th before the holiday, involves a total of 46 public officials from each autonomous district and the Hangang Project Headquarters, organized into 24 teams, focusing on inspecting whether pollution prevention facilities are operating normally at 223 key inspection targets for pollutant discharge. The key inspection targets include wastewater discharge businesses such as ? dyeing and plating businesses that discharge highly toxic wastewater ? businesses that discharge large amounts of wastewater ? companies handling chemical substances and organic solvents.

In addition, to encourage voluntary participation, cooperation letters are sent to individual business sites (1,853 locations) such as car washes and other wastewater discharge businesses so that they can conduct self-inspections of pollutant discharge facilities. During last year’s Lunar New Year holiday, cooperation letters for voluntary inspections were sent to 1,860 wastewater discharge businesses, and through special inspections, two businesses violating related regulations were detected and subjected to suspension of operations and prosecution.

In the second phase, from the 11th to the 14th during the Lunar New Year holiday, Seoul City will operate a comprehensive situation room and each autonomous district will operate its own situation room to enable rapid response in case of environmental pollution accident reports and emergencies. For rivers where pollution is a concern, monitoring teams will be organized to conduct patrol activities. The monitoring teams will focus on water source systems, areas around factories, and rivers at risk of pollution, conducting intensive monitoring and patrols, and will receive reports of environmental pollution acts such as unauthorized wastewater discharge.

Environmental pollution acts such as unauthorized wastewater discharge are punishable by imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of up to 10 million won under the Water Environment Conservation Act. Citizens who discover environmental pollution acts can report them to Seoul City’s Dasan Call Center at 120 or the Government Integrated Civil Service at 110.

Kim Jae-gyeom, Director of the Water Circulation Policy Division of Seoul City, explained, “To prevent environmental pollution accidents during the Lunar New Year holiday, it is necessary not only to strengthen Seoul City’s special monitoring but also for citizens to actively cooperate by reporting environmental pollution acts and conducting voluntary inspections of pollutant discharge facilities.”

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