UN: SKorea coast ecosystem should recover

Yahoo News 21 Dec 07;

The ecosystem on South Korea's oil-covered coast should recover in three to five years after this month's oil spill, a U.N. expert said Friday.

Tens of thousands of coast guard officers, soldiers and volunteer workers have been working daily since a wayward barge slammed into a Hong Kong-registered supertanker on Dec. 7, causing it to release about 78,920 barrels of oil into the water off the west coast.

The amount leaked was about a third the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill that gushed 260,000 barrels of oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound.

Olof Linden, a member of a U.N. environmental team dispatched to help assess the damage, said it would take years for the ecosystem to fully recover. "I would say within three to five years ... That's the period we're talking about."

He said cleanup efforts have been successful and people should be able to use beaches in the area next year, though small amounts oil and tar will still be present.

"Tourism will suffer much more from the belief that that area is contaminated, rather than the actual situation," Linden said at a joint press conference with other international experts.

A major South Korean environmental group expressed skepticism about Linden's prediction.

"It's possible to revive the ecosystem within three to five years, but I think it will take longer," said Ji Chan-hyuck, a spokesman at the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement.