Shipping traffic has been increasing in past a decade along korean coastal waters, especially with dangerous goods carriers such as VLCC, chemical tankers, products carriers and LNG/LPG carriers, accordingly threat of marine pollution exists all the times by marine accident. In addition, boisterous weather and high seas by Mid-latitude low and tropical storms and dense fog become to be one of causes of marine accident
In fact, large-spill took place south of Sorido Island in 1995 by Tanker Sea Prince, spilling about 5,000tons of crude oil and bunker-C and northwest off Taean Bando, spilling about 12,547㎘ of crude oils.
Looking at the world large spill accident, Torrey Canyon Spill and Amoco Cadiz Spill are known as the catastrophic marine pollution, after that, Exxon Valdez Spill occurred at Alaska in U.S.A in 1989. It was more than 4 trillion won damaged by the Exxon Valdez Spill. And it is expected that It'll take hundreds of years to recover of damage. In spite of many efforts to prevent oil spill internationally, large spill accidents by tanker Erika, Nakhodka and Prestige recently happened and gave warning the seriousness of oil spill to coastal nations.
In korea, spill accident related-improvements were made after Sea Prince spill, however many problems, defects and deficiencies were pointed and found during response activities to Hebei Spirit spill accident. In this regards, this paper seeks more effective and practical national response system to prevent spill accident and minimize the damage by oil spill in future as follows.
(1) It is necessary to make early introduction of limit of navigation for Single-Hull Tanker as soon as possible even though single-hull tanker can not navigate internationally after 2010. Otherwise some other measures should be made like special escort by KCG cutters, designation of sea lane and special traffic control and so on.
(2) National response system to catastrophic spill accident should be reviewed and amended, that is to say, present command system of separate organization between on-water response and shoreline response must be unified to KCG for prompt and effective response as local government, responsible for shoreline cleanup, has no capabilities in manpower, expertise and equipments.
(3) National and Regional Contingency Plan should be reviewed and corrected to provide policy, system and resources for practical situations, estimating worst case discharge with scientific ground and establishing appropriate spill scenario.
(4) With adequate and special shiphandling training program including computer-based simulation, especially ship operators of coastal small vessels and towing boats should be improved and upgraded in ship operating ability and decision-making ability under extraordinary situations.