February 18, 2011

 

South Korea's 27 livestock burial sites need repair

 

 

Twenty-seven livestock burial sites near the upper region of South Korea's Han River need maintenance work to prevent landfill leachate from polluting drinking water or nearby streams, the country's Ministry of Environment said Thursday (Feb 17).

 

The ministry has conducted an extensive survey of burial sites for cows and pigs culled to prevent the further spread of FMD amid concerns that reckless burials may cause a massive environmental disaster. Impromptu burial sites have been dug into slopes or groundwater reservoir feeds due to a lack of space to contain the volume of infected livestock in the crowded country.

 

After conducting on-site inspections on 83 burial sites in the upper region of the water source for metropolitan areas, the ministry announced that 27 carcass sites were poorly maintained and need repair work according to the government's culling guidelines.

 

Regarding concerns over water contamination near the mass graves, the inspection team brushed off such possibilities, saying it has not found any cases that landfill leachate, including the blood of animals, had flown into nearby water supplies.

 

It also said 20 out of the 27 carcass sites on the watch list had only two cows buried, and even if the leachate gets into the water source, the purifying process will remove undesirable chemicals, materials and biological contaminants from polluted water.

 

The ministry plans to fix the problematic sites within the next month and thoroughly check 16 other sites, officials said, while providing water service to the households that use underground water near the mass livestock graves.

 

Meanwhile, a plastic factory in Gimpo, just northwest of Seoul, reported that groundwater from a tubular well turned smelly and foamy shortly after a neighbourhood farm culled and buried 53 cows in late December.

 

"I reported to the city as the water smelled and had bubbles when I opened the tap of the tubular well," a factory employee said, noting the factory stopped using it and now relies on water provided by the city.

 

City officials, however, said they have not found any landfill leachate in the polluted water.

 

The provincial government culled over 65,000 animals, or 77% of the total cattle, after a pig farm was hit by the FMD outbreak in late December and has since provided water service to those who have stopped using pipe water out of concern over groundwater pollution.