Fukushima Debris Washes Up on West Coast Beaches

Can we clean up our trashy oceans? When it comes to debris that floats in from the Japanese Fukushima disaster, it may be vitally important, because some of it may be radioactive. This hasn’t been proven yet, but flotsam from Fukushima–such as empty soda bottles with Japanese labels–are washing up on West Coast beaches.

In the March 13 edition of the New York Times, Malia Wollan quotes Washington State beachcomber John Anderson as saying, "That wave wiped out whole towns, I’m thinking just about anything could show up here. I’ve heard people talking about floating safes full of Japanese money." But so far, what he’s mostly found is dozens of buoys with Japanese writing on them.

Wollan writes: "Computer models run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and by researchers from the University of Hawaii predict that debris has moved eastward from the coast of Japan, driven by currents and wind. The models predict that bits of detritus will begin washing up on the northwestern Hawaiian Islands this spring and along the western coast of the United States and Canada in early 2013."

She quotes NOAA Marine Debris Program director Nancy Wallace as saying, "We don’t think there is a massive debris field out there. It will come up in little spurts here and there, a small trickle over years."

She quotes beachcomber Tom Baty as saying, "You walk up to something on the tide line, and you scratch your head and think, ‘Now where did that come from?’" "

Little spurts here and there"–alas, that could be a description of how this website gets its support, when the truth is that we’re just not going to make it much longer without more help from YOU. And we hope that YOU make it to our Dreamland Festival in May, where we’ll be searching the sky with Nick Pope for more UFO information.