Tagged: tsunami debris

When a massive concrete and metal dock – 66 feet long, seven feet tall, 19 feet wide and covered in alien species – hit an Oregon beach this week, the threat to the Northwest’s economy and environment from millions of tons of Japanese tsunami debris suddenly became more real.

Even with the haunting appearance of a Japanese ship floating off the coast of Alaska, reports of what we might expect to hit our coastlines centered mostly on plastics, soccer balls and even some human remains in running shoes – all of which carried more curiosity than alarm.

But then the dock just showed up on the beach one morning and now the threat of ships colliding with significant tsunami debris, and the invasive species that can hitch a ride from the coast of Japan on them, has officials significantly worried.

The Japanese consulate has confirmed that the dock that washed ashore Tuesday at Agate Beach near Newport is debris from the March 2011 Tsunami in Japan. it was checked for radiation and results came back negative.

Now, Oregon officials have organized a group of volunteers to scrape off, bag up and dispose of the hundreds of millions of marine organisms that hitchhiked aboard a boxcar-sized dock that floated across the Pacific during last year's tsunami.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — An oceanographer who tracks flotsam says West Coast beachcombers may find floating athletic shoes with human bones as more debris from the Japanese tsunami washes ashore. In a presentation Monday at a tsunami symposium in Port Angeles, Curt Ebbesmeyer told the audience he's expected 100 sneakers with bones in them.

OCEAN SHORES, Wash. - The first items of debris swept into the Pacific Ocean by last year's big tsunami in Japan are turning up on the Northwest coast. More is out there drifting our way. The state of Washington hosted a meeting Wednesday to prepare local governments and beachgoers for what to do about this. Oregon held similar meetings last week. Here's the takeaway: tsunami debris pickup depends largely on you.

Debris from last year’s Japanese tsunami has in fact hit Northwest beaches, according to new modeling by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Washington state is putting up posters to help you decide what to do if you spot any.

The new model by NOAA shows where the debris is, not when the bulk of it will hit the shores. But, as has been reported, some debris has crossed the ocean. Last week, the Coast Guard sank a derelict Japanese fishing vessel off the coast of Southeast Alaska. Also, glass and plastic floats have turned up.

The Coast Guard is watching for fuel and debris from a derelict Japanese fishing vessel it sank off the coast of Southeast Alaska on Thursday.

Kip Wadlow is with the agency’s public affairs office. He says all that was spotted was a small sheen. But he expected that to dissipate quickly.

Wadlow says the Ryou-un Maru went down at 6:15 p.m. local time in about 6,000 feet of water.

"When the ship started to sink, the starboard quarter, or the right-back side, went in the water first. And then the ship just slowly rolled over and sank."

With a derelict Japanese fishing boat floating off the coast of Canada, U.S. senators from Alaska and Washington state say the United States needs to hurry up and get ready for more debris from last year's Japanese tsunami.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — An official from the Japanese consulate in Seattle has visited the home of a Port Angeles man to inspect a large black float he found near Neah Bay to determine if it's some of the first debris from the tsunami that hit Japan last March.

The images are blurred by steam and obscured by radiation. But they are the first look we've gotten inside Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor that was crippled by a tsunami last year.

How do you remove from the ocean more than 100,000 tons of Japanese tsunami debris heading for Northwest shores? By hand, says one expert.

“When you’re talking about open ocean … It’s a very big ocean,” says Andrea Neal, an experienced ocean cleaner. “There isn’t a whole lot being done in the open ocean.”

That’s because most programs devoted to cleaning marine debris focus on prevention and coastal cleanup. When crews do confront debris in the open ocean, cleanup efforts require hands, a ship and supplies which can cost more than $35,000 per day to operate, because the composition of the debris makes it difficult to get out of the ocean.