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Built up over 150 Years Successful Completion of the Five-Year Purification Project

  • Date

    2025.10.29.

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Busan North Port to Remove Grime Built up over 150 Years
Successful Completion of the Five-Year Purification Project
- Successful completion of the contaminated sediment removal project for Busan North Port seen to create a new marine environment

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF; Minister Chun Jae-soo) announced that the contaminated sediment removal project for Busan North Port—which has been carried out for 5 years since 2021—was completed on Friday, September 5.

The project was initiated to improve the water quality of North Port—whose Cleanup Index (CIHC)* was found to be above the standard in the survey on the distribution of marine pollutant sediments in 2017—and to establish the status of North Port as a tourist port through redevelopment.

* Cleanup Index: As a numerical value representing the contamination level of marine polluted sediments, it is an assessment scale for 11 types of harmful chemicals—including chromium, copper, mercury, and lead—used to determine the need for cleanup and restoration.

With total investment of KRW 35.4 billion, this project dredged and treated 453,233 cubic meters of contaminated sediment from a workable area of 356,802 square meters excluding the navigation channel and redevelopment zones within the North Port. The interim monitoring conducted in 2022 after Phase 1 of the project in 2021 clearly confirmed the effect of improving pollution as the CIHC level decreased from 4* or higher to 2.5.

* A place with CIHC level of 4 or higher indicates it has almost lost the ability to purify itself. Recovery from this state is impossible without artificial efforts such as dredging or covering. A level below 4 indicates that the self-purification ability has been recovered to some extent.

MOF plans to conduct post-project monitoring for 3 to 5 years beginning 2026 to continue managing changes in the pollution level of seabed sediments even after project completion.

“We expect this purification project to contribute to improving the marine environment of Busan North Port. We will continue to make efforts to develop this area into a clean, beautiful tourist attraction befitting its economic and historic status,” said Oh Haeng-nok, Director General of MOF’s Marine Environment Policy.
 
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