Japanese Debris to Start Hitting Western U.S. and Canada THIS WEEK

Source: Washington's Blog

Japanese Debris to Hit Western U.S. and Canada

I noted in June that debris from carried out to sea in the Japanese tsunami would hit the Western U.S. and Canada within a year or so, and that nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen urged us to demand testing of radioactivity from the American government.

It turns out that scientists underestimated the speed with which the debris would reach the Western coast of North America.

As Canada’s National Post reports today:

The largest items swept out to sea following the Japanese tsunami in March could arrive on the B.C. coastline within days, oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer predicted on Wednesday.

The main part of the 20-million-ton debris field, equivalent in size to the state of California, isn’t expected until about 2014, but houses, fishboats and even small freighters could already be close to Canadian shores, Mr. Ebbesmeyer said.

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“We just finished running a simulation with a drifter, a buoy that got lost in the area of the tsunami, and we find that the first of the debris would be here now,” Mr. Ebbesmeyer said.

Beachcombers along the west coast of B.C. should be on the lookout and report any unusual finds, he said.

Mr. Ebbesmeyer is a Seattle-based oceanographer, educated at the University of Washington, who tracks flotsam using computer models. He has consulted for multinational firms, working on projects such as the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.