[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 34 (Monday, March 11, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1285-S1286]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF JAPAN'S TSUNAMI
Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, today is the second anniversary of a
very tragic event in Japan. An earthquake--a tsunami--claimed nearly
16,000 lives and destroyed community infrastructure, homes, and
livelihoods. Years after the fact, our prayers remain with the people
of Japan for the lives which were lost and for the devastation that
occurred within that country.
I had an opportunity to be in Japan in January. I had a chance to see
for myself some of the devastation that Japan still faces 2 years after
the 3/11 tsunami and earthquake. The pictures that so many of us recall
of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. We all watched with great
concern as the accident in front of us unfolded. It was truly a sense
of helplessness that was brought about by an act of nature. A massive
earthquake which delivered a massive wave which truly brought about
massive destruction.
I also had an opportunity--after viewing the Fukushima Daiichi
reactor--to travel north to a small fishing village by the name of
Rikuzentakata. It was a community of about 23,000 people. That
community alone lost over 1,900 residents who were swept out to sea--
including an Alaskan teacher, Mr. Monty Dickson, whose life was lost.
To be in this fishing village 2 years after the fact and see how this
community is trying to regain its footing--not only economically but
emotionally--was quite compelling. Again, Japan is dealing with the
aftermath of this destruction in ways those of us here probably cannot
appreciate.
From an energy perspective, the country of Japan--literally
overnight--went from a nation where close to 30 percent of their energy
was generated by nuclear to a point where the nuclear power that was
generated was truly just shut down as everything was on pause for that
nation. How a nation rearranges its energy portfolio is a situation
that country is dealing with as we speak.
There were connections between Japan and the tsunami that I think are
still being felt today. When that tsunami hit, the people of Alaska
were on alert on our coastlines. They were waiting and wondering
whether we would be impacted by the giant wave that had taken the lives
of so many thousands of Japanese. Well, we didn't see the big wave, but
what we did see--and what we are continuing to see--is a level of
marine debris that has been carried across the currents from Japan and
the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington State,
British Columbia, and then circling all along the coastline of my State
of Alaska.
It is estimated that there is about 1.5 million tons of debris that
is floating in the ocean. It was estimated by the Japanese Ministry of
the Environment that there were 5 million tons of debris that washed
into the ocean. They further estimated that 70 percent of that debris
sank near the coast of Japan soon after the event. This is something
the Japanese fishermen were greatly concerned and worried about.
What we are seeing now--as the floating debris moves its way across
the currents--is debris on the shoreline of Alaska in surprising
quantities. The picture behind me is some of the debris. There is roof
of a house, the bottom of a boat, and buoys. It is just a floating mass
of debris in the middle of the Pacific. This is just an example of some
of what we have seen over the course of 2 years now.
Sometimes the sightings are pretty phenomenal, such as this picture
which was off the Oregon coast. This is actually a concrete dock that
floated all the way across the ocean from Japan and landed on the coast
of Oregon.
I have sons who are commercial fishermen. They spend their summers
out on the water. We worry about obstacles in the water that our
fishing vessels could encounter. Running into a concrete dock is not
something any mariner would want to do. So we think that 2 years after
the fact we should have seen most of the debris we would anticipate. In
fact, the vast majority is still coming our way.
These are buoys along the Alaskan shore. This was taken on Montague
Island which is just off Kodiak Island. Not all these buoys are
necessarily from Japan. Some are just the general marine debris that we
see. But what we have been able to determine is that the Japanese buoys
are coming across. Those things that are sitting higher up on the water
are moving more quickly, but things that are just below the water
surface are still on their way.
How do we deal with all this? How do we reach the beaches, whether it
is the beaches in Oregon, California, Hawaii or Alaska? In Alaska, we
have 44,000 miles of coastline. That is a lot of territory for debris
to come up on, and in so much of this area in my State, these beaches
are not accessible by vehicle. They are not accessible by road. It is
extraordinarily difficult to deal with the cleanup.
This is a picture of marine debris cleanup in a community by the name
of Yakutat, a small fishing village along the coast. What they are
finding is that as the community volunteers go out and clean what
beaches they can, they have no space in their small landfills there to
accommodate the debris. So it would be one thing if we knew this was
all we were going to be dealing with. Our reality is we know more is
coming.
How we respond is going to be key. It is going to be critical to the
communities that are impacted. But for so many of these areas where
there are no individuals to see this, there are none to appreciate what
has happened, but still we are faced with Styrofoam, plastics, nets--
incredible amounts of nets--things that will not only foul the beaches
but foul the animals that may be in the area. We have a responsibility
to act. So how do we do it? How do we do it at a time of difficult
budgets? We all appreciate that. It requires a level of creativity, if
you will--partnerships with local and government officials. It requires
us to be proactive in terms of what is coming to our shores.
[[Page S1286]]
We have asked the White House to assist with a debris cleanup task
force to get all the agencies that are involved--State, tribal,
Federal--to be participants in how we address these issues.
The Government of Japan last year stepped forward and provided $5
million to the affected States, plus an additional $1 million to
Canada--they were not obligated to provide the money for an effort to
help us address the cleanups. What we need to do in this country--
again, we have asked the White House to establish this interagency task
force to deal with the debris that continues to come to our shore is to
determine how we engage, how we are working together to help make a
difference. That is going to be critical. We also don't want to forget
the private interests that are potentially engaged in the cleanup. We
have so many different interests, so many different industries, and
private citizens who are so dependent on our navigable waterways, our
healthy ecosystems. What we need is good communication and good
leadership. We need a plan to guide the interagency and the public-
private partnership approach to solving the challenge. I commend the
NOAA Marine Debris Program for their coordination and their response to
the work. The fact is they are small. They are overtasked. They need
the help of their Federal partners to address this as a national
priority.
So as we continue to see increased levels of debris coming over after
the tsunami, it is imperative we act to address it.
It has been interesting in the Alaska press because there have been
ongoing stories about the connections. We think Japan is thousands of
miles away and we don't have that connection. Beachcombers found a
soccer ball with the name of a Japanese boy--a 16-year-old boy and his
phone number--and were able to make that call back to the village of
Rikuzentakata and tell that young man, whose family lost everything in
the tsunami, that we have your soccer ball here. It made it to the
shore of Middleton Island in Alaska. But for that young man to have
been delivered that soccer ball, after everything else he and his
family owned had been wiped out, was a reminder that we are all
connected and how we can be working together to help one another.
I ask unanimous consent to have this news story from the Anchorage
Daily News printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
In Alaska, we have a lot of experience with helping our neighbors
out. We will continue to work to address the issues, work to address
the debris that is reaching our shore, but we do need a little bit of
help from our government. We need a little bit of help when it comes to
advancing this interagency task force so we can address what we are
seeing in Alaska, what we are seeing on our coastline in the Pacific
Northwest and in Hawaii as well.
With that, I thank the Chair and I yield the floor.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Anchorage Daily News, Mar. 9, 2013]
2 years After Japan Tsunami, Debris Spreads in US
(By Becky Bohrer--Associated Press)
Juneau, AK.--Two years ago, the yellow buoy was hanging as
part of a restaurant sign in the coastal community of
Minamisanriku in northern Japan when an earthquake triggered
a tsunami and washed it--and so much more--out to sea.
About a year later, the buoy was found more than 3,000
miles away on a remote Alaska island, discovered by an avid
beachcomber who, through sheer coincidence, was later able to
find the owner, who had lost her home and business. Hundreds
of similar buoys have been found on beaches along the West
Coast, a combination of the everyday trash that has plagued
coastal areas for years and debris washed away by the March
11, 2011 disaster.
Distinguishing between the two is difficult. Just 21 items
from among the more than 1,500 reports of possible tsunami
debris have been firmly traced back to the tsunami, according
to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The confirmed items include several derelict vessels,
including a small boat found in Hawaii waters, large docks
that have washed ashore in Washington state and Oregon and a
motorcycle that washed ashore off the coast of British
Columbia.
These are items that tend to have unique markings--names of
people and places, registration numbers or other identifying
information. The agency lists scores of other items along the
West Coast and across the Pacific Ocean as potentially linked
to the catastrophe.
The Japanese government estimated 1.5 million tons of
debris was floating in the ocean in the immediate aftermath
of the disaster, which devastated a long stretch of Japan's
northeastern coast and killed thousands of people. But it's
not clear how much is still out there or what might reach
U.S. shores. NOAA has said the debris is spread over an area
roughly three times the size of the contiguous United States,
and that beachgoers may notice an increase in debris ``over
many years,'' in addition to what normally washes up.
Beachcombing on Middleton Island, in the northern Gulf of
Alaska, has long been a favorite pastime for radar technician
David Baxter and some of his colleagues. In early 2012, there
had been talk about finding tsunami debris--``a wall with a
safe in it or a briefcase of money, we'd always joke about
that''--but Baxter said he didn't think it was realistic he'd
find anything related to the tsunami, given models he'd seen
at the time that suggested the debris would move much further
south.
Then, in February 2012, a co-worker found a soccer ball.
Baxter subsequently found another soccer ball--a discovery
that made international headlines as one of the first
identifiable pieces of debris to wash up--a volleyball and
the buoy.
The buoy stood out to Baxter as a bit different from other
buoys that have washed up. For example, it was hard, not
inflatable, and had writing on it. By chance, when a Japanese
film crew was visiting him and his wife after the discovery
of the soccer ball, they panned on other items he'd found,
including the buoy, he said. A friend of the restaurant's
owner, Sakiko Miura, happened to recognize it, and the owner
later confirmed it was hers through a photo sent by Baxter.
FedEx, which flies regularly between Anchorage and Tokyo,
volunteered to return items including the balls found by
Baxter and the buoy last June. The team traveled by plane to
Tokyo and then by train to outlying communities, hand-
delivering the items, spokeswoman Sharon Young said.
``It was a wonderful experience, to reunite people with
things that meant a lot to them and that survived this
incredibly devastating situation.'' she said Friday.
Baxter and his wife were recently able to talk to Miura,
who said she plans to rebuild. He said he found the owner of
the soccer ball his colleague found, an 8-year-old, and plans
to return it this summer.
Baxter said he can't help but be affected by what he's
found. He wife is Japanese and he said he has visited the
nation several times. But it's more than that.
``I wonder all the time, when you see (things) if the
person was in the house, if they survived,'' he said, adding
later: ``Of course, when I see the housing insulation and
household items, shampoo bottles, shaving cream bottles with
Japanese writing on them, yeah, it hurts a little.''
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