Oceanographer Jim Ingraham answers questions about the islands of debris from the March 11 Japan tsunami that are slowly floating toward the Pacific Northwest, 13 December 2011. Behind him is a float, found east of Neah Bay, that is believed to be the first identified piece of wreckage to arrive via ocean currents. Arwyn Rice / Peninsula Daily News

By Arwyn Rice, Peninsula Daily News
14 December 2011 PORT ANGELES – The first piece of debris that could be identified as washing up on the West Coast from the March 11 tsunami in Japan — a large black float — was found on a Neah Bay beach two weeks ago, Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham said Tuesday night. Since then, the two researchers, known as DriftBusters Inc. — who have used flotsam to track wind and water currents in the Pacific since 1970 — have learned that the black, 55-gallon drum-sized floats also have been found on Vancouver Island. Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham spoke to more than 100 people at Peninsula College and brought the float with them, along with examples of other items that may be showing up on beaches in the next year. Tons of debris washed out to sea when a tsunami struck northern Japan after a massive magnitude-9.0 earthquake March 11. About a quarter of the 100 million tons of debris from Japan is expected to make landfall on beaches from southern Alaska to California, possibly in volumes large enough to clog ports, Ebbesmeyer said. Using models from a historic shipwreck that occurred 20 miles off Neah Bay, Ebbesmeyer and Ingraham have determined the path of debris that comes into that area off the Washington coast. They said debris will be snagged by currents leading into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and that a large portion of it will end up on beaches from the mouth of the Elwha River to Port Townsend. […] The floats are included in masses of black blobs supporting huge rafts of debris that include fishing boats, houses and possibly human bodies, Ebbesmeyer said. Many of those bodies and parts of bodies will likely begin washing up in about a year, some simply as feet in athletic shoes, similar to those found in Puget Sound over the last decade, he said. […] People should also be aware of the possibility of radiation contamination, he said. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant leaked a large amount of radiation into the water in the wake of the tsunami, and no one knows what levels of contamination there are in the currents, and the items being carried in those currents, he said. Ebbesmeyer suggested local police take steps to have sensitive Geiger counters available to scan items — just to be safe. The event was unprecedented, and no one knows yet what levels of radiation, if any, items have picked up, he said.

First debris from Japanese earthquake/tsunami reaches Olympic Peninsula