충남 태안 허베이 해양사고 15년, 주요 조사 연구의 동향과 과제

Abstract

In December 2007, the tanker named Hebei Spirit came into a collision to a floating crane of Samsung Heavy Industries near Taean, Chungcheongnam-do, on the West Coast, resulting in an accident of significant oil spill. This is one of the most serious marine pollution accidents in Korea. A tremendous volume of crude oil in the tanker spilled over the sea area of Taean, Chungnam, and its size of spill was 2.5 times larger than that of the Sea Prince oil spill accident in 1995 which was known to be the largest scale spillage accident in Korea at that time. It was even larger than the total volume of oil spill until 2007. This accident not only damaged ecological environments but also caused a serious mental and material loss to local residents supporting themselves with fishery, tourism, etc. Particularly to fishers who were eking out a living with 'bare hands,' the damage was tragic. As crude oil spilled over the ocean, a significant volume of fish and shellfish such as oyster, littleneck clam, laver, etc. in local farms perished. 15 years now after the accident, the condition is recovering quickly back to the time before the damage owing to the dedicated efforts of volunteers around the nation as well as Taean residents. However, conflicts on various issues in and out of the local community still remain. Above all, the reputation, image, and trust of the locality that have been accumulated for a long period of time collapsed seriously although the legal responsibilities of the offending enterprise might be minimized in that process. The passive and defensive communication led to negative results such as destroying the local image and the community unity. Besides, it was pointed out that there should be a change to the government's response to crises. While in the risk of sea pollution due to oil spillage, the government needs to establish a private-public joint response system rather than a government-led unilateral response. It is also necessary to bring the responsible enterprise to account seriously and make it an obligation for it to put forth more efforts to recovery. The government must take the serious responsibility to prevent and cope with environmental disasters and recover the social and environmental conditions. As it has passed about 15 years after the oil spill accident over the sea area of Taean, Chungnam in the West Coast, this study reflects on major research trends so far and examines future issues in this regard. The focus is on major research findings for more than 10 years from 2008, the following year of the accident, to 2017. Specifically, this study is divided into the following sections: the damage of this environment pollution in a financial perspective, activity of action for damages and measures, voluntary work and mass media reports, psychological states of residents in the damaged region, continued conflicts with interested groups and cracks in the local community, ecological environment monitoring, economic resilience over the damaged region, and comprehensive investigation.