Chungcheongnam-do

On 7 December 2007, the Hong Kong registered oil tanker Hebei Spirit(146,848 GT) collided with a crane barge of Samsung(11,800 GT) at the sea about 10km off the Malli-po Beach of Taean and brought about huge spill of 12547㎘ of crude oil from the tanker. That was the worst oil spill accident ever on the sea of South Korea and the extent of damage by this accident was estimated twice as that spilled by the Sea Prince accident near Yeocheon, Chunnam in 1995. That spill occurred when the rope connecting the barge and its tugboats on the way to Geoje in Gyeongnam Province was cut and the barge collided with the anchored tanker.

The Oil Slick Spreading into Overall Area of the Taean Peninsula
As the oil slick from the tanker spreaded along the coastlines of the Taean Peninsula, lots of fisheries and fishing places amounting to 7,000㏊ were heavily damaged and massive fishkills seemed to be inevitable on the many fisheries of oysters, short-necked clams and abalones.
Due to that spill, the total areas amounting to 221㏊ of 15 beaches such as Malli-po, Chulli-po, Sindu-ri, Hakam-po were severly contaminated. This disaster immediately arrested international attention and there was a rush of help and support from other countries. For example, Singapore provided a special aircraft for disaster prevention, China and Japan supplied absorbent towels, and UN and EU dispatched a joint research group to Taean.

Fatal Damages to Ecosystem
That oil spill seems to have significant devastating effects on the overall ecosystem from the plankton in the sea to the algae on the land. Because the oil slick intercepts oxygen and lights, that accident will result in many fishermen’s huge property losses from the massive fishkills. Especially, the lower animals like microorganism, seaweeds, etc., which are the main food of fish, seem to be severely damaged. Among birds, casualties occur intensively to the birds which usually search food in swampy lands or the coast such as Grebes, Wild ducks, Cormorants and Seagulls. The foreshore needs longer time to be recovered completely mainly because the polluted parts are apt to sink to the depths of the sea when sands are accumulated on them.

Enormous Economic Losses to the Foreshore
Considering the total amount of spilled oil from the Hebei Spirit and the vast extent of the damaged areas, that accident is counted as one of the world-worst oil spill disasters and the total losses, including direct and indirect losses, are estimated to be enormous. The damages to the foreshore of Taean, one of the 3 major foreshores of the world, will be significant before everything else because Taean is a treasure house of priceless marine resources and the most beautiful marine national park in South Korea. Moreover, the estimated long-term damages to the ecosystem will be countless.
The total areas of the damaged foreshores amount to 100km². According to a scientific analysis, the total economic values of 1km2 of the foreshore as sources of marine productions, center of ocean leisure and storage for preventing calamities, reach 3.9 Billion Won(KRW). If we apply this analysis to the total damaged foreshores, we can get the calculation of annual losses only in the foreshore of Taean amounting to 390 Billion Won. Considering the long-term effects from the contamination on other areas except Taean and the destruction of ecosystem, the total losses will astronomically increase.
An insurance company usually recompenses the total value of marine products for 3 years to the losses caused by marine contamination in conformity with international custom. From this custom, we could infer that the effects of an oil spill last at least 3 years. But, the environmental experts see the effects last more than 10 years. For example, the case of the Exxon Valdez that spilled more than 40,000 tons of oil in 1989 shows the influences of that spill on the environment are still in progress.
Moreover, part of spilled oil can lump into ‘Oil Ball’ the size of a baseball and sink into the deep seas. And this oil ball can cause the secondary contaminations.

The Total Number of Volunteers for the Recovery Projects Surpassed 1 Million
The oil spill disaster from the Hebei Spirit makes an epoch in the number of volunteers for the recovery projects. On January 7th, the 32nd day from the oil spill, the accumulated number of the volunteers surpassed 1 million and ‘The miracle of Taean’ is still in progress by endless volunteers.

 The united and committed efforts of government-people-army finally recovered the West Coast messed with spilled oil and impressed the world. The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, introduced the West Coast of South Korea as a place of miracle where a human chain of hundreds of thousands of volunteers made an impossible mission possible.
Vladimir Sakharov, team leader of Joint UNEP/EC Team, said that he was very impressed at the systematic cooperations between the central and local governments, the army, the police, NGOs and indivudual volunteers and he evaluated the national solidarity of South Korea high.

Chungnam Suggested the West Coast Recovery Project
The compensations for the losses and the stabiliza- tion of livelihoods
Chungnam plans to provide financial supports and tax favors considering the residents’ sufferings from damages in their fisheries, rapid decrease of the number of tourists, reduced demands for the marine products, etc.

Improvement of the image of the damaged areas
Chungnam will strengthen public relations and host big events to improve the image of the damaged areas when much is restored to normal conditions. Chungnam will give information about the progressing of the recovery projects by sector such as tourism, fisheries and marine product industries, fish and shellfish, etc. And it will positively broadcast scenic spots near the damaged areas and food safety of marine products which are caught and produced in these areas.

The revitalization of regional economy
Chungnam will make a strong drive for important projects like the West Coast Tourism Belt, the Taean Business City, the Seosan Special District of Bio and Well-being Industries, the Korea Floritopia 2009, the National Maritime Relics Museum and the Marine Ranch Project.

The recovery of the damaged ecosystem
Chungnam will do its best to recover the ecosystem and natural environments of the damaged areas. Now diverse researches about the influences by this sea pollution, the restoration of the ecosystem, the recovery of the Taean Coast National Park, and the trails of floating oil balls, are in progress in relation to the recovery project.

Single-Hulled Tanker and Double-Hulled Tanker
The worst disaster since the Sea Prince oil spill broke out on the morning of 7 December 2007 in Taean, South Korea. Both oil spills were caused by single-hulled tankers. Although the world makes efforts to retire single-hulled tankers confirming to the MARPOL for the prevention of sea pollution by oil tankers, Korea is known as still having a lot of single-hulled oil tankers. As for VLCC, Very Large Crude Carrier, Korea has many single-hulled tankers consisting 60% of total shipping amounts in importing crude oils, while there is no single-hulled tanker in ocean lanes to U.S.A or Europe. Therefore Korea is exposed to further oil spill disasters like the Hebei Spirit accident.

The Miracle of Taean Known to the World
The Taean Story was Presented in the 20th World Volunteer Conference in Panama
The great activities by more than one million volunteers were introduced to the world. The Korea Council of Volunteering(KCV) introduced volunteers’ service activities in Taean at the IAVE’s 20th World Volunteer Conference in Panama. KCV pesented a moving picture at the conference showing the beautiful scenery of the Taean Peninsula before the disaster and the volunteers’ ardent activities for recovery in the damaged areas. This moving picture gave a chance to show the Korean volunteers’ preserving strength to the world along with the inauguration of Mr. Ganghyun Lee as chairman of IAVE.
Mr. Lee, the first asian chairman of IAVE, said that “Activities to get rid of the spilled oil were more rapidly progressed than the general expectations on the initiative of volunteers.” and he added “Now is the time to heartily support by proper means those who lost their foundations by the oil spill accident.”
The International Association for Volunteer Effort(IAVE) is a representative global organization for volunteers with members in over 100 countries. IAVE was established in 1970 and now is in consultative status with the ECOSOC.