The expert review says..."Location Feasibility Issues"

Anchor

With the publication of the basic plan for Jeju's second airport, the decision-making power of the people to resolve conflicts has become crucial.

To this end, KBS has organized a plan to examine the issues of what should be verified in the environmental impact assessment process, or "Jeju Island Time."

Last year, the Ministry of Environment conditionally agreed to MOLIT's strategic environmental impact assessment based on expert review opinions.

Reporter Kang In-hee summarizes the review opinions of the Korea Environment Research Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Science and Technology.

Reports

In March last year, the Ministry of Environment conditionally agreed to the Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment for Airport 2.

It was more than a year and seven months after the ministry rejected it, citing insufficient measures for bird collisions and noise impacts, legal protected species, and skeleton conservation.

At that time, five environmental organizations submitted review opinions to the ministry.

As it is Jeju Island's time to resolve issues in the environmental impact assessment, we checked the review opinions of each organization.

This is the opinion of the National Institute of Environmental Science, which is affiliated with the Ministry of Environment.

The second airport project is expected to increase the number of residents and develop a hinterland city, but it cannot be confirmed whether there has been a review of the size of the facility and the groundwater level and ground safety caused by water withdrawal in consideration of this, and it raises issues with the evaluation method, saying that the groundwater level drop is a concern, but the groundwater inspection plan for before and after the construction of the second airport has not been reviewed.

He also expressed the opinion that it is necessary to evaluate the suitability of Seongsan as a location by analyzing the groundwater content up to 30 years after the completion of construction.

The Korea Environment Research Institute, a national research institute under the Prime Minister's Office, also raised issues with the suitability of the location itself.

It stated that the bird habitat conservation plan proposed by MOLIT to prevent aircraft bird collisions does not meet the purpose of the Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment, stating that the issue of the location of Airport 2 was not properly reviewed.

In particular, it said that for birds of legal protection, habitat restoration and adaptation takes more than 10 years, making MOLIT's prediction of bird migration to alternative areas ineffective.

In effect, two major environmental research institutes have questioned the feasibility of the location.

Despite the review opinions of these expert institutions, MOLIT passed the ball to Jeju Island, telling it to come up with alternatives during the subsequent environmental impact assessment deliberations.

I'm Kang In-hee of KBS News.

Reporter: Ko Sung-ho/Graphic: Seo Kyung-hwan