B.C. facing mountains of tsunami debris

25 million tonnes to wash up in 2013

VANCOUVER— Twenty-five million tonnes of debris from the earthquake and tsunami last March in Japan could begin washing up on Hawaiian shores this winter and reach B.C. beaches by next year, a new analysis says.

The B.C. government says it will begin working with national and municipal officials this month to get ready.

People living in the Vancouver Island town of Tofino are already preparing themselves for the arrival of detritus from the disaster, even while they debate amongst themselves whether the first rubble hasn’t already arrived.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tracked massive islands of debris floating in the Pacific for months after the disaster last March 11. The islands have disappeared from satellite images, it says, and few ships have seen evidence of the boats, cards, buildings, households, offices and factories swept out to sea.

The agency and the University of Hawaii estimated the first of the now-submerged junk could reach Hawaii by this winter and the Pacific Northwest by 2013.

Julianne Mccaffrey, a spokeswoman for the Emergency Management B.C., has confirmed the province is creating a Provincial Tsunami Debris Working Group.

The arrival of the debris, which some experts have said covers an area the size of California, has raised some “complex jurisdictional issues,” she told The Canadian Press. “In most cases, the federal government has authority in the water and immediate shorelines, and in most cases the local authority becomes the lead if the debris washes ashore in areas above the high tide line.”

B.C.’S announcement comes as one U.S. expert confirmed some flotsam, like 250-litre Japanese fishing buoys, may have already landed on Pacific Northwest shores.

And locals in Tofino, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, have found plastic water bottles with Japanese writing, toothbrushes and even socks that they speculate could have come from Japan.

But Jeff Mikus, a commercial fisherman for more than 20 years, isn’t convinced. He pointed out most of the fishing gear he buys in B.C. is made in Japan, with Japanese markings.

As well, many ships pass Vancouver Island.