Paju city in Gyeonggi Province and Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-Water) are locked in a standoff over compensation for victims of a regional water supply outage that occurred in November last year. The city has demanded blanket compensation for all affected households, citing the double burden residents face from both the incident and complicated claims procedures, but K-Water has refused to budge.
According to Paju city on the 11th, the city held the third meeting of its "Water Outage Compensation Council" the previous day. The meeting received a report on the results of an investigation into the cause of the leak conducted by the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment. The investigation found that cumulative errors during the design, construction, and supervision processes led to the accident. Problems identified included incorrect application of steel pipe reinforcement specifications to KP Mechanical's cast iron pipes and insufficient joint strength due to aged bolts and nuts.
However, K-Water has not issued any statement to Paju city or its residents regarding these findings. Council members strongly protested, saying, "Despite clear evidence of responsibility, there has not even been an official apology."
The conflict over compensation methods is even more acute. K-Water proposed paying the cost of six 2-liter bottles of water per household for nine days, covering two days of water outage and seven days of water quality stabilization. The issue lies in the application requirements: residents must submit copies of their resident registration, identification, and bank account, plus original receipts for bottled water purchases.
Paju city and the council argued that "requiring receipts from citizens who urgently purchased bottled water during an unannounced outage creates additional hardship," and requested blanket compensation for all affected households. K-Water has maintained its position.
The lack of any channel for filing damage claims also drew criticism. The council noted that "K-Water has no plan to accept damage claims, making it impossible to even assess the scale of citizen damages," and requested measures allowing Paju city to directly handle claims. No compensation plan has been presented for damages beyond bottled water costs affecting small business owners, self-employed workers, and companies.
Council members passed a resolution containing six demands: an official apology from K-Water, public disclosure of accident causes to citizens, presentation of a comprehensive compensation plan, immediate implementation of damage claims processing, legally supervised damage claims handling, and establishment of measures to prevent recurrence. Members warned, "We will take strong action rather than continue coordination and discussion."
Paju city plans to hold a fourth meeting on the 13th and demand that K-Water directly explain the accident causes and compensation plans.
A Paju city official stated, "We will directly handle damage claims and pursue legal action together with civic groups."
