The Construction Site for the West Sea Barrage Chosen by the President

Chairman Kim Jong Il said:

"Comrade Kim Il Sung is not only a great thinker, theoretician and prominent leader, but also a man of wide knowledge who is well versed in everything."

President Kim Il Sung, who continued his whole life with inexhaustible investigation and led the revolution and the construction brilliantly with incomparable and outstanding insight, was a great man of prominent ability and knowledge.

During the years of leading our revolution, President Kim Il Sung always made accurate analysis and inferences on all sorts of things arising in the revolution and the construction and sorted them out with profound knowledge and comprehensive insight.

The West Sea Barrage, standing high on a 20 ri-wide sea, is one of many evidences in the era of the WPK that prove greatness of him possessed of outstanding view that amazes the world.

It is no secret to everybody that the West Sea Barrage is a monumental structure which has great significance in national economy including preventing flood and solving transportation problems.

However, few people know on what scientific basis it was built.

Building a large-scale barrage on the West Sea was nature transforming project that President Kim Il Sung planned as early as 1950s during Fatherland Liberation War.

President Kim Il Sung, who understood the significance and importance of building the West Sea Barrage, proposed it in 1980s and led wisely the struggle to realise it.

At that time the main problem in the construction of the barrage was deciding where to build the barrage.

He pointed out that important thing in building a barrage was to prevent the mud from piling downside of the dam and that in many countries there were many examples that they couldn't use the barrage because of the mud piled downside of the dam.

He taught the importance of choosing the site of the dam saying that the possibility of building a barrage depended on whether they choose the site where the mud didn't pile.

The officials and the scientists who were responsible for project design were arguing on the site of the West Sea Barrage only from the perspective of the scale and the cost of the project.

As a result, they insisted on building the barrage in Tongjon Ri, Nampho. It was because the width of the river was relatively narrow in that zone considering that it was the downstream of the River Taedong and it had some favorable geographical features, which meant that it would be easy to build a barrage because the scale of the project wouldn't be huge.

On May 22nd, Juche70(1981) the President Kim Il Sung personally went out to the sea on a ship accompanied by officials and capable hydraulic engineers. They didn't know that he was going to personally choose the site for the barrage.

He asked them to stop the ship at some point away from the port and studied the sea for a while.

The officials looked at each other confused.

After a while, he said with confidence that was the site to build the barrage.

The officials and hydraulic engineers, who accompanied the President Kim Il Sung not knowing why, looked at the site where he was pointing at and got surprised.

It was the site where the boundary between the River Taedong and the West Sea could be seen clearly as if somebody had drawn it with a ruler.

It was clear to everybody that seaward side was so clear that the bed could be seen while the riverward side was impure due to deposit.

If the barrage was built along the boundary, it would certainly be an ideal structure on the sea which connected Kktsalppuri, Phi Islet and Kwangryang Gulf.

The President Kim Il Sung said to the officials who were greatly impressed that he had noticed that the water had been clean in that zone while it was impure in the inward side of Nampho.

He continued that it showed that if the barrage was built in that zone, no deposit would be piled, and that even if deposit was piled, it would be easily removed by opening the floodgate because the floodgate itself was adjacent to the sea.

It is common knowledge that if a barrage is built in the estuary of a river, there happen consequent changes in the topography in the waters outside the barrage and it can cause fatal effect on the management of the barrage. As a result, some would abandon costly barrage or in some cases they would pay too much for dredging to pay for the cost. It's really like "The plough goes before the oxen."

That day the President Kim Il Sung said that although the scale of the project would get bigger to build the barrage in the zone, it wasn't a big deal and explained about its economic effectiveness.

The officials and the scientists were deeply impressed by his scientific insight and profound knowledge.

The site of the West Sea Barrage which was chosen by him was literally the most ideal place to build a barrage.

Photo. grand monumental edifice – the West Sea Barrage

The West Sea Barrage which was built on a 20ri(8km)-wide sea is standing high as the everlasting monumental structure demonstrating its vitality in the economic development and improvement of people's living standard in Korea.