May 17, 2012 – WASHINGTON — The lead federal agency in charge of dealing with the tsunami debris from Japan can't say what kind of flotsam will make landfall and how hazardous it might be. It also can't say who will be in charge of clean up or even how 911 operators should handle debris sightings.
That was the testimony offered Thursday at the first Senate oversight subcommittee hearing on response planning for the vast marine junk field projected to hit Washington and Alaska coasts late next year.
David Kennedy, assistant administrator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), fielded an hour of pointed questions from Sen. Maria Cantwell and two other members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Cantwell, along with Mark Begich, D-Alaska, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, grilled Kennedy about NOAA's contingency plan for the coming economic and ecological problems.
The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami washed an estimated 5 million tons of garbage out to sea. Some 70 percent of that likely sank immediately, leaving 1.5 million tons drifting slowly across the Pacfic Ocean. The debris field now is so vast and dispersed that NOAA has turned to classified high-resolution satellite images to help track it.
Kennedy testified that NOAA's 13-person Marine Debris Program is doing its best to anticipate where, when and what debris will hit U.S. shores. But when it does, Kennedy told Begich that it would be largely up to local communities to handle it.
Read the full story at the Seattle Times.