It’s been more than five months since the Japan earthquake and tsunami.
Many coastal areas in northern Japan were devastated and tons of debris washed into the ocean.
That debris is headed our way, but how much, and how long before we may see it?
The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration has created models as to how the debris will flow.
"We’ve used to project sort of the trajectory and estimated time of arrival for some of this debris, again these are computers models. So, what’s really going to happen, and what that debris will be, how much it will be we really don’t know,” said Carey Morishige of NOAA.
NOAA and the Coast Guard have teamed up to pull more than 700 tons of marine debris out of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands over the past 15 years.
“Our entire archapelago acts as sort of a giant comb within the Pacific Ocean, and we get debris, not from just the north pacific, but from all over the pacific,” said Morishige.
In this case NOAA is enlisting others.
‘”It would cost quite a bit of money to hire a fleet to scour the entire north Pacific Ocean to look. So, we take advantage of what we call sort of ships of opportunity. And these partners, whether it be private business, military, shipping industry, fisheries."
Hoping to get a better idea of just what might be headed our way.
“We’re thinking probably, maybe building materials, construction type materials might come from that, but again this is our first opportunity that everything was lined up so we could really collect information on marine debris from natural disasters."
As for when the National Marine Monument Papahanaumokuakea might be affected?
“It’s supposed to hit the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands first, and we’re expecting it in the spring of next year,” said Morishige.
See the original article at: KHON2 Local News
