환경문제의 과학기술적 구성과 그 한계: 정수장의 가짜이산화염소(CIO2) 투입사건의 사례를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper deals in the case of false ClO2 (stabilized ClO2 ) with the relation between environment problem and science-technology, especially with how it comes from scientific-technological response on the nature.The sanitation process of drinking waters, containing essentially a scientific-technological solution for minimization of the virus in natural waters, means a risk between minimization of virus and by-product bearing as its result. Cl2 as a disinfectant in the sanitation plant was substituted with ClO2 in 1992, after finding as a by-product the Trihalometan(THM) being known to cause a cancer. ClO2 becomes known to bear no injurious by-product, but is difficult to deal with because of its unstable form. That a stabilized ClO2, being used as a disinfectant up to that time, is constituted mostly with the injurious ClO2 (60∼90%), was discovered und debunked from a environment-engineering experiment of waters in the sanitation plant in March, 1996. The usage of a stabilized ClO2 as disinfectant was found in later disputes to have been developed from the coalition between the bureaucracy(the department of drinking waters in the Ministry of Environment) and a company(Cealin Asia Co.), with the legitimation through the research of academic experts.This study shows as follows; First, scientific discovery or debunking is found to be necessary, but not sufficient for clarifying environment problem. Environment problem, as the scientific and social fact, can be solved not only by scientific experiments, but also by social considerations including economic cost, bureaucracy or social movements. Second, many environment problems in Korea are found to appear yet from a corrupted coalition between bureaucracy and company, and academic legitimation, while these in developed countries are, as problem of risk, open to scientific controversies. In Korean society with a compressed modernization, environment problem was and is socially constructed not only by premodern process as non-expert Bureaucrat and corruption, but also by modern process as economic efficiency and scientific risk etc.