|
Water quality test labs and underground water developers stand accused of conspiring to fake test results and providing polluted water to 1,410 nurseries and schools nationwide. Police have busted 14 test labs they say manipulated water test results of 1,753 sources nationwide of which 1,410 were supplying drinking water.
Police say testing agencies certified water contaminated with nitrate-nitrogen as ¡°suitable for drinking¡±, enabling them to win public contracts. Public officials, who are required to be present when the water samplers are collected but weren¡¯t, are also implicated in the conspiracy. Underground water developers must pass a water quality test and win approval from local governments. If nitrate-nitrogen in the water resource is over the acceptable limit, they must seal the site and develop another. The testing labs say rejecting the shady deal offered by the developer would have meant failing to win the contract to conduct regular tests required every three years. Test labs charge W250,000 (US$1=W926) per test and mobilize sales reps to win the fierce competition for testing contracts.
University test labs are no exception: labs at Daejeon Health Sciences College, Korea University and Sangji University are also implicated in the quality test manipulation. Public officials who oversee testing were at least negligent. They never showed up when the samples were collected, and only rubberstamped the paperwork to approve contaminated water. An official with the National Institute of Environmental Research is accused of receiving W18 million in kickbacks from a test lab.
They supplied 19 nurseries, 168 schools, 489 homes and 286 community water supply facilities. A residence in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, was provided with drinking water containing up to 17 times the permissible level of 10 ppm of nitrate-nitrogen. The manipulations mainly occurred in the Chungcheong and Gyeonggi provinces.
The heads of five test labs were arrested and indicted, while 32 underground water developers and public officials were booked without detention. Two lab chiefs were sentenced to 10 months and one year in prison. Prosecutors say a mass food poisoning case in June among students served by the nation¡¯s biggest food provider CJ Food System was caused by vegetables washed in contaminated groundwater. Prosecutors have investigated 52 test labs since October after they obtained evidence that water test results were being manipulated.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
