B.C. and federal governments form committee to coordinate the handling of Japanese tsunami debris

A Japanese fishing trawler floating off the B.C. coast is among the first verified objects of debris that has reached Canada following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

In Canada, the Tsunami Debris Coordinating Committee co-chaired by provincial and federal representatives has been created to manage any tsunami debris that arrives on B.C.’s coast in the coming months. Although there is no certainty regarding the arrival of the debris on Canada’s shores, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and University of Hawaii models suggest the bulk of it will arrive in 2013.

“NOAA and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans have suggested that one-third or less of the mass may actually make it here [to Canada],” the coordinating committee says in a press release. “The other two-thirds (of non-sinking material) will go back toward Hawaii or end up in the North Pacific convergence zone — an area in the ocean where objects come together in something like an eddy and form a massive garbage pile.”

The committee is trying to educate Canadians not to keep the objects as keepsakes. Transport Canada salvage rules note that “a ship that sinks or goes aground, or cargo that is lost over the side is still the property of the original owner – the shipper, the company to which a vessel is registered or an insurance company.”

The committee says it does not believe there will be any issues with radioactive contamination of the debris, although it will test as a precaution. The tsunami did cause a meltdown of several reactors in Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, but most of the debris would have been swept away from Japan prior to the issues with the nuclear reactors.