By Seo Jee-yeon
Staff Reporter


A residential vote on housing low- and medium-level nuclear waste repositories is scheduled for Nov. 2 in four candidate cities, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) Thursday.

Citizens of four communities _ Kunsan City of North Cholla Province and Yongdok County, Kyongju City and Pohang City of North Kyongsang Province _ will initiate the polls on Oct. 4.

Representatives of the four communities issued a joint statement with the MOCIE accepting the timeline for the vote, the most critical procedure in deciding the final winner of a long-awaited nuclear waste dumpsite.

The ministry repeatedly said it will select the winner based on the voting results.

To be named a final candidate, one-third of all community residents have to join the election. The community with the highest approval rate will be named the final winner.

Election campaign activities are allowed to only those who have the right to vote.

If none of the candidate communities gain a majority approval, the ministry has to start over in selecting an area for the nuclear waste repository.

The worst-case scenario means the government will fail to meet the construction deadline of 2008.

Korea, the world’s sixth largest nuclear power plant operator, has been searching for a nuclear waste dumpsite since 1986.

With the current capacity for nuclear waste storage to be filled by 2008, it is urgent that a site be selected soon.

In 2003, the MOCIE designated Wido in Puan County as a nuclear depository site, but it dropped the designation due to strong opposition from residents.

Meanwhile, the ministry said that four candidate sites passed geological evaluations to house the nuclear waste dumpsite.

jyseo@koreatimes.co.kr