Tsunami debris: Oregon braced for winter storms
Debris
from last year's Japanese tsunami has already started landing on the
West coast of the United States, and people living in Oregon are bracing
themselves for more in the next few weeks, when the winter storms
begin.
The early mist over Yaquina Bay in Oregon is beginning to
burn off as 25 volunteers gather to clean up the beach. The wind shapes
the sand into dunes and debris can often be found collected at the base
of these. A dozen college students have joined pensioners, surfers and locals keen to keep the beach clear of all rubbish - but they are aware more debris from Japan is on its way.
"As far as what will come - that part scares me," says Sandy Hayden, who lives in the nearby fishing town of Newport.
"I've walked the beaches and see the trash that washes up anyway in the winter time so I have no idea what this winter will bring - but I just hope that there are a lot who will volunteer to clean it up."
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
Sandy Volunteer beachcomberIt's a reminder of what happened, so it's not just trash”
Hayden is collecting pieces of
polystyrene which have blown in and broken up. She puts them in a
plastic sack along with bits of fishing rope, rubber and bottles. It's
hard to say where it all originated, or when. But as time goes on, an
increasing proportion of the rubbish will come from Japan.
It had initially been estimated the tsunami debris would hit
land on the west coast of North America in 2013 but items started
washing up in April this year, beaching in Alaska, British Columbia,
Washington and Oregon. They are just starting to reach California now.Volunteer beachcombers, who work alongside State Parks officers, are given gloves to protect their hands. There has been no evidence yet of any radioactive debris, but anyone who finds flotsam on the beach can alert the rangers if they do not want to touch it themselves.
Hayden says the volunteers are sensitive to what the debris is.
"It's a reminder of what happened, so it's not just trash. It was people's belongings and people's livelihoods and people's homes," she says.
More than 15,000 people died in the tsunami. The images of whole villages being dragged into the ocean remain vivid in the minds of anyone who saw them.
Continue reading the main story
Find out more
Costing the Earth: Tsunami Debris is on BBC Radio 4, 9 October at 15:30 BST and 10 October at 21:00 BST
Thousands were drawn to Agate
beach, Newport, when a 66ft (20m) concrete dock, kept buoyant by
polystyrene, arrived intact in June.
"They all reacted in different ways," says Chris Havel of
Oregon Parks and Recreation Service. "Many of them just walked up and
touched it - without saying a word they were making contact with it...
and after we confirmed it was from Japan the attitudes deepened. People
were making this emotional connection with this horrible tragedy."
An entire dock washed ashore in June
"We can make these predictions about ocean currents but we've really got to get our eyes out there and see what's out there," says Jack Barth, an oceanography professor at Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences.
Continue reading the main story
Invasive passengers
- Dock that landed in June carried with it 100 different species, three of which pose threat to native organisms
- Many still being identified
- Dock was scraped clean, scorched with weed torches, then broken up and recycled
- Organic matter buried above tide line in hole filled with layers of chlorine and sand
- But experts fear millions of spores and organisms escaped clean-up
"If it's a bunch of wood just
from houses I don't see that as a big worry, but imagine larger pieces
of houses if it was able to survive all the way across. There's
obviously personal effects and we want to be watching out for those
because it'll provide some closure for those families back in Japan."
This has already happened. A football and volleyball washed up on Middleton Island, Gulf of Alaska, with names written on them, allowing beachcombers David and Yumi Baxter to trace the teenage owners and send them back.
When a container with a Harley Davidson motorcycle in it washed up on a beach in British Columbia, a Japanese person saw it in the press and helped locate its owner via the registration plate.
Despite the 5,000 miles of ocean between them, there is another connection that Oregonians have with Japan - a shared geology.
Signs at Yaquina beach warn of the tsunami risk here too. The coast has a history of significant earthquakes that in the past have caused giant waves, but that was before there were large settlements here.
The next one that strikes will leave them "susceptible to the same sort of tragedy that struck Japan", Mr Havel says.
"This dock, it shook loose from the west coast of Japan, travelled 5,000 miles across the ocean and delivered a message in a bottle to the people of Oregon saying: 'This will be you - we don't know when or how big it's going to be or exactly what will happen but this will be you. Understand that, prepare for it, but really accept the fact you live on the Pacific coast and there's a cost to doing that.'"
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น