Pacific County Emergency Management officials are conducting three meetings this week about the expected debris from last year’s Japanese tsunami washing up on the Washington coast.
The meetings are intended to help determine how potentially hazardous some of the debris might be and what to do with it if someone finds something that requires immediate attention.
Three meetings
The first meeting is at 6 p.m. tonight at the Peninsula Church Center in Seaview. The second is at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Ocean Park Fire Station and the third is at 5:30 p.m. at the Shoalwater Bay Tribal Center in Tokeland.
“I believe we are going to have a pretty good group. We have had quite a bit of interest in it,” said Stephanie Fritts, Pacific County Emergency Management director. “My understanding is that people already are finding things.”
The main speaker at the sessions will be Nir Barnea, regional marine debris coordinator for National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The state Department of Health will be sending an expert on radiation, and representatives of the state Department of Ecology and the state Emergency Management Division will be on hand.
Barnea will conduct a similar session in Ocean Shores next month during the annual Beachcomers Fun Fair, March 3-4.
So far, the best estimates predict most of the debris will be arriving sometime next year.
“The model being run by the University of Hawaii and NOAA shows fairly good agreement that the debris will move across the Pacific by currents and wind, and for the bulk of it to arrive in the proximity of the West Coast, more likely toward the Northwest first, then down to California,” Barnea said.
It may already be here
Reports of some debris already washing up are yet unconfirmed, but Barnea acknowledges it’s possible some debris could already have washed up.
“It’s difficult or even impossible to predict wind and currents over days, months, and in this case, even years in advance,” Barnea said. “So there is a fair degree of uncertainty associated with the model, and this should be viewed as a rough approximation.”
Different items move at different speeds, he added.
“Some items stick out of the water and so float a little higher, and may be pushed by prevailing winds a little faster,” he said
Fritts said some of the questions she’s been asked are whether the debris could be dangerous or potentially hazardous, and what to do with it when once you find it.
“We want to make sure we have people available to answer those type of questions,” Fritts said. “I’m not a marine debris expert, and I have coordinated this more in the interest of public safety.”
Fritts also runs the 911 center in Pacific County, and she said she personally wants a better understanding about how to respond to emergency calls about beach debris.
“I want to make sure we do the right thing with that phone call,” she said. “I don’t want to be the source of an international incident.”
Fritts noted that one group already concerned about the debris is called the Grassroots Garbage Gang, which conducts quarterly beach cleanups on Pacific County beaches. The tsunami meetings initially were scheduled to be held prior to the group’s first beach cleanup of the year on Jan. 21, but they had to be delayed because of the snow storm that week.
“I want to make sure that people are informed and move forward in the right way with this,” Fritts said.
NOAA also is concerned some of the debris could be hazardous.
“I would not rule it out,” Barnea said. “It’s possible for drums to be among the items that could float and show up at times. We should know that this type of marine debris often shows up normally on beaches. We get over 10 calls a year for drums or other hazardous materials on the beaches. It has happened for years and years.
“Unfortunatley, there’s a lot of marine debris out there in the ocean.”
Barnea said the best way to get information about the tsunami debris is through NOAA’s online site: http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/info/japanfaqs.html.
