Poets, essayists and novelists, all 42 persons from Korea Literary Association have visited the water retention site of the Yeongwol River in July 24. They attended briefing session about the Four Major Rivers Restoration Project in the field office in there after visiting the historical and cultural sites like the Dong River Photo Museum, Mausoleum of Danjong (A King of Joseon Dynasty) and looking around Cheongryeongpo, an ecostream. Some authors left their impressions about their visit the site of the project.
"Worries about drought and flood will be washed away, ever and ever."
In hometown's mountains and rivers which my infancy remembers, each and every year drought came to stifle farmers' hope to cultivate rice so that they had to farm only dry field for merely crops of buckwheat, bean or daikon to barely manage to survive. That pitiful memory we had is still vivid. That time the village seniors used to say that 'without water control, we are destined to suffer repeatedly generation by generation'.
Just only one experience of flood can carve a trauma to anyone's memory. Flood comes, sweep and let barely survived people to run into hills and stay awhile in lethargy. Those pictures were a part of tradegy from no prevention against water disaster.
Generally the Four Rivers Restoration Project consisted upon basic purpose of riparian symbiosis between nature and human. Environment-friendly lake, culture infrastructure establishment, ecological theme areas creation and environment enhancement for preventing water disasters are the project's way to go. In construction site of retention facilities on the Yeongwol River and Pyeongchang River that I visited on recent days, I could verify that all the procedures are going on its ways and the resoluted wills seemed firm for reaching to the efficient achievement.
We have to take a good control on water resources. When we restore abandoned streams and polluted rivers so to revitalize ecosystems again, once-left creatures will return. These chronic problems could be fundamentally solved; the apprehensions of flood or drought will disappear.
KIM Song-Bae, poet, head of subcommittee of poetry, Korea Literary Association
