A p ril 13. 2011
^Jortlnnh (Dbseruer
Page 5
Tsunami Debris Will Reach West Coast
First items expected in a year,
other pieces to take 2 to 3 years
( AP) — John Anderson has dis
covered ju st about everything
during the 30 years he's combed
W ashington state's beaches —
g la s s fish in g flo a ts, h o ck ey
gloves, bottled messages, even
hundreds of m ism atched pairs of
Nike sneakers that washed up
barnacled but otherwise unworn.
The biggest haul may come in
one to three years when, scien
tists say, wind and ocean currents
eventually will push some of the
massive debris from Japan's tsu
nami and earthquake onto the
shores of the U.S. West Coast.
"I'm fascinated to see what ac
tually makes it over here, com
pared to what might sink or biode
grade out there," said Anderson,
57, a plum ber and avid beach
com ber who lives in the coastal
town of Forks, Wash.
The floating debris will likely
be carried by currents off of Japan
toward W ashington, Oregon and
California before turning toward
Hawaii and back again toward
Asia, circulating in what is known
as the North Pacific gyre, said
Curt Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle ocean
ographer who has spent decades
tracking flotsam.
Ebbesmeyer, who has traced Nike
sneakers, plastic bath toys and
hockey gloves accidentally spilled
from Asia cargo ships, is now track
ing the massive debris field moving
across the Pacific Ocean from Ja
pan. He relies heavily on a network
of thousands of beachcombers such
as Anderson to report the location
and details of their finds.
"If yo»put a major city through
a trash grinder and sprinkle it on
the water, that's what you’re deal
ing with," he said.
j
As to whether any of the debris
might be radioactive from the dev
a sta tio n at Ja p a n e se n u c le a r j
pow erplants, James Hevezi, chair I
of the American College of Radi
ology Com mission on Medical
Physics, said there could be.
"But it would be very low risk,"
Hevezi said. "The am ount that
would be on the stuff by the time
it reached the W est Coast would
be minimal."
Only a small portion of that de-
bris will wash ashore, and how fast
it gets there and where it lands de-
pends on buoyancy, material and
other factors. Fishing vessels or
items that poke out of the water and
arcm ore likely influenced by wind
may show up in a year, while items
like lumber pieces, survey stakes
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and household items may take two
to three years, he said.
If the items aren't blown ashore
by winds or get caught up in an
other oceanic gyre, they'll co n
tinue to drift in the North Pacific
loop and com plete the circle in
about six years, Ebbesm eyer said.
"The material that is actually
blown in will be a fraction" of the
tsunami debris, said Curt Peterson,
a coastal oceanographer and pro
fessor of in the geology department
at Portland State University. "Some
will break up in transit. A lot of it will
miss our coast. Some will split up
and head up to Gulf of Alaska and
Oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer displays debris-a survey marker, child's toy and Nike shoe-he 's
(British Columbia)."
picked up from ocean beaches near Seattle.
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