Page 279 - 2018 Defense White Paper

To conserve the soil environment, the MND inspects 4,107 facilities subject to soil

contamination control 38) pursuant to the Soil Environment Conservation Act, and uses the
findings for the restoration activities including decontamination projects. As for soil pollution
prevention facilities, such as drum storage yards and tank dikes 39) that prevent soil pollution

caused by oil spillage and other accidents, the MND has set up 14,245 of the 17,595 facilities
required by the year 2017, and another 294 facilities in 2018. The MND plans to build additional
3,056 facilities in the coming years.

| Implementing Environment-Friendly National Defense Facility Projects | The MND
is currently repairing buildings containing asbestos, reducing radon emissions, and improving

working sites with hazardous environments to protect servicemembers from being exposed to
harmful materials including asbestos and radon.
Visual surveys conducted between October 2017 and January 2018 have conf irmed 23,975
buildings containing asbestos. 40) Among 16,181 buildings, excluding 7,794 buildings subject to

other projects such as camp relocation or the removal of unused facilities, the MND removed
asbestos from 262 buildings in 2018. Starting in 2019, the MND plans to inject more than

double the budget to KRW 50 billion or more to reduce the time required for asbestos removal.
For radon reduction projects, the MND conducted surveys on military barracks between
2012 and 2015. Based on the survey, the MND completed reduction projects for 225 of the 408
building surveyed using soil depressurization and indoor ventilation. 41) The MND implemented
Chapter 6
reduction projects for 38 buildings in 2018 and intends to complete the projects for the remaining
145 buildings by 2019.
To improve the environment in hazardous working sites, the MND identif ies facilities exceeding

the environmental standards among the 2,500 facilities performing plating and maintenance

38) Facilities that are likely to cause significant soil contamination (Article 2, Soil Environment Conservation Act),
which include oil storages with a capacity of 20,000ℓ or more
39) Tank dike: A bathtub-shaped structure that blocks oil spillage from ground oil tank
40) The Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps had environment officers, and the Air Force had its own asbestos
investigation team registered with the Ministry of Employment and Labor to conduct the surveys.
41) Soil depressurization: This method extracts the air in the soil beneath a building to outside
(depressurizes the soil to prevent radon inflow into indoors)
Indoor ventilation: This method installs ventilation systems to extract indoor air to outdoors, and introduce outdoor
air to indoors

Section 5 Ensuring Fair Enforcement of the Duty of Military Service and Enhancing the Benefits for the People 277