Flotsam from Japanese tsunami hitting the U.S. West Coast

Flotsam from Japanese tsunami hitting the U.S. West Coast:  Seattle - John Anderson has found almost all over 30 years he has combed the beaches of Washington State - float glass, hockey gloves, bottled messages, even hundreds of distinct pairs of running shoes Nike, which washed barnacled but otherwise unworn.
The biggest catch might come in one to three years, when the scientists say, wind and ocean currents eventually push some of the massive collection of Japan's tsunami and earthquake on the shores of the U.S. West Coast.
"I'm fascinated to see what actually makes it here, in comparison with what can sink or biodegrade over there," said Anderson, 57, plumber and Avid tramp who lives in the coastal town of Forks, Washington
Floating debris is likely to be carried by currents from Japan to Washington, Oregon and California before turning toward the Hawaiian Islands and back to Asia, circulating in the so-called cycle of the North Pacific, "said Curt Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer in Seattle who has spent decades tracking debris .
Ebbesmeyer, who traced Nike sneakers, plastic bath toys and hockey gloves accidentally spilled from ships Asian goods, is currently tracking a massive debris field, crossing the Pacific Ocean from Japan. It relies on a network of thousands of Beachcombers such as Anderson announce the place and details of their finds.
"If you put the big city through the garbage grinder and sprinkle it on water, this is what you are dealing with," he said.
On the issue of any debris may be radioactive from destruction at Japanese nuclear power plant, James Hevezi, chairman of the American College of Radiology Commission on Medical Physics, said that he could be.
"But it will be very low risk", Hevezi said. "The amount to be at things in the time it reached the west coast will be minimal."
Only a small part of this debris will be washed ashore, and how fast it gets there, where it lands depends on the buoyancy of the material and other factors. Fishing vessels or objects that poke out of the water and are more likely caused by wind can occur in a year, while items such as lumber pieces, survey stakes and household items can take anywhere from two to three years, he said.
If items are not blown ashore by the wind or get bogged down in another ocean circulation, they will continue to drift in the loop of the North Pacific Ocean and a full circle in about six years, Ebbesmeyer said.
"The stuff that really will be blown up in the faction of the tsunami debris," said Kurt Peterson, a coastal oceanographer, professor of geology at the Department of Portland State University in Oregon. "Some of them will break in transit. Much of this is going to miss our coast. Some of them will be divided up and head to the Gulf of Alaska and the (British Columbia)."
"All of this garbage will find a way to get to the West Coast or stop in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling mass of marine debris is concentrated in the Pacific Ocean, said Luke Centurioni, fellow Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UC San Diego.
"Dispersion is quite large, so it's not as straight shot from Tokyo to San Francisco," said Centurioni, principal investigator for the Global Drifter Program funded by NOAA. The program deploys about 900 satellite-tracked drifting buoys, each year around the world to collect sea surface temperature and other data.
Much of the debris will be plastic, which is not completely destroyed. This raises concerns about marine pollution and potential harm to marine life. But the number of tsunami debris, while a massive, yet nothing compared to the rubbish that is dumped in the ocean on a regular basis, Ebbesmeyer said.
Ebbesmeyer and retired NOAA researcher Jim Ingraham using a computer program for constructing road debris from 11 March tsunami, adding to the growing knowledge of sea currents. Modeling is based on data collected by weather the U.S. Navy, and the researchers are waiting for the monthly release of these data to make their first forecasts.
Ingraham programs have been developed to determine the consequences of ocean currents on salmon migration, and two used it for part of the way a lot of floating debris.
Ebbesmeyer first became interested in the wreckage when he heard the message of finding the Beachcombers hundreds of water-soaked shoes in Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Asian cargo ship bound for the United States in 1990 was spilled thousands of Nike shoes in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean. He was able to trace the serial numbers on the shoes to the cargo ship, giving him the points where they began drifting in the ocean and where they landed.
Oceanographer also tracked plastic bath toys - frogs, turtles, ducks, beavers - which fell overboard a cargo ship in 1992 in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and were later found in Sitka, Alaska.
Anderson said that he constantly scans the beaches of watching something that catches your eye. He found about 20 bottles of messages, mostly schoolchildren, and several hundreds of Nike sneakers, which he cleaned by soaking in water and eventually gave, sold or exchanged.
"Within two years, it will be stuff coming in (from Japan), and probably a lot of it," he said. "Some of them relate to enter"