Gwangju City Holds Plaque Ceremony for Advanced Water Treatment Facility at Yongyeon Water Purification Plant... Supplying High-Quality Tap Water

Mayor Lee Yong-seop: "We Must Enhance Expertise Across the Entire Production and Supply Process to Provide Safe Tap Water"

On the afternoon of the 27th, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, attended the plaque unveiling ceremony of the advanced water treatment facility held at Yongyeon Water Purification Plant in Dong-gu and toured the interior of the facility. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City has completed the construction and trial operation of the advanced water purification facility at Yongyeon Water Purification Plant and has begun supplying high-quality tap water in earnest.

On the afternoon of the 27th, Gwangju City held a plaque ceremony for the advanced water purification facility at Yongyeon Water Purification Plant, attended by Mayor Lee Yong-seop, Vice Chairpersons Jo Seok-ho and Jeong Sun-ae of the City Council, Choi Mi-jung of the City Council Environment and Welfare Committee, and Yeom Bang-yeol, Head of the Waterworks Business Headquarters.

The plaque ceremony proceeded in the order of reporting the progress related to the operation of the advanced water purification facility, unveiling the plaque, and inspecting the water purification process facilities.

Mayor Lee Yong-seop said, “The first thing to do when producing tap water is always to supply safe tap water that citizens can trust and rely on,” adding, “We must enhance expertise throughout the entire process of tap water production and supply management so that citizens can experience innovation in tap water.”

The advanced water purification facility is a water purification system that further processes tap water, which has undergone general purification processes such as coagulation, sedimentation, and filtration, by using ozone injection facilities and activated carbon adsorption beds (commonly called ‘charcoal’).

It oxidizes and decomposes large organic substances into smaller ones and removes pathogenic microorganisms by contacting ozone, which has excellent sterilization power, to eliminate difficult-to-remove earthy odors (Geosmin), mold odors (2-MIB), and other substances from the general water purification process. Then, it uses activated carbon to adsorb organic substances, completely removing taste and odor-causing substances.

The advanced water purification facility at Yongyeon Water Purification Plant, which cost a total of 50 billion KRW, began construction in May 2017 and was completed in December last year. It produces 300,000 tons of tap water per day.

After completing a four-month self-test operation, the advanced water purification facility has been supplying 290,000 tons of high-quality tap water daily to the Dong-gu and Buk-gu areas of Gwangju City since producing 60,000 tons starting from the 5th of this month.

Gwangju City expects that with the full operation of the advanced water purification facility at Yongyeon Water Purification Plant, it will be able to actively respond to rapid changes such as the deterioration of water quality in the Dongbokho water source (including taste and odor inflow).

Meanwhile, the Gwangju Waterworks Business Headquarters has been promoting the ‘Smart Water Network Management Infrastructure Construction Project’ since last year to establish a monitoring system that integrates information and communication technology (ICT) throughout the entire tap water supply process.

This project, with a total budget of 43 billion KRW, plans to install remote metering systems, water quality measuring devices, automatic drains, and precision filtration devices in the water supply network. It aims to complete the infrastructure for preventing water quality accidents in advance and enabling rapid accident response as early as next year and to operate it thereafter.

Additionally, the replacement of aging pipes, which began in 2005, will continue according to an annual plan with an investment of 273.6 billion KRW until 2025.

Currently, the total length of water pipes in Gwangju City is 3,931 km, of which 662 km are aging pipes subject to replacement, accounting for 16.8% of the entire water supply network.

In particular, a special task force for aging pipe maintenance has been formed and is operating to complete the replacement of large aging pipes in the Section 1 Ring Road area, a major target for pipe replacement, by the end of this year.

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