Korean Tap Water Threatened by Buried Animal Carcasses

From Bloomberg:

More than 1,000 kilometers from Tokyo, Seoul is having its very own crisis of faith in tap water, and radiation isn’t to blame.

In South Korea, the carcasses of 9.7 million cattle, pigs and poultry were buried in mass graves across the frozen countryside after outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease and bird- flu last winter. That’s raised concerns that pollutants may enter groundwater now that the soil has thawed, said Jun Kwan Soo, a professor of environmental engineering at Yeungnam University.

“Health has to come before everything else regardless of the expense,” said Lyu Soon Ha, a 63-year-old grandmother who is buying bottled water from remote Jeju Island because she fears supplies from the mainland could be contaminated. “I want to give my grandchildren good water when they come to visit.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-11/buried-animal-carcasses-cause-korean-water-concerns-as-evian-sales-climb.html