Thursday, June 28, 2012

Japanese Dock-Newport, Oregon

Our June visit to Yachats coincided with the arrival of a floating cement dock from Japan. The dock is part of the debris from the tsunami that struck Japan after the Miyagi earthquake on Friday, March 11, 2011. It washed up on Agate Beach near Newport. The dock is seven feet high, 19 feet wide and 66 feet long. It looks a lot like a boxcar. It is the first official tsunami debris to reach Oregon. Kizzie and I thought we might see a barnacle encrusted wreck but instead found the structure had been scraped clean and was being blasted with fire from what looked to us like flame throwers. We saw workmen loosen hatches and proceed to scrape off the barnacles and mussels.
The ton and a half of marine organisms that had already been scraped off were bagged and buried inland. Experts didn’t expect so many of the organisms to survive the journey across the Pacific. They fear that the organisms may be invasive species that could destroy local marine life. Officials estimate that 5 million tons of debris washed into the Pacific Ocean after the tsunami and that about 70% of that sank. That leaves about 1.5 million tons floating our way. That’s a lot of scraping, burying and burning. What does it mean to have another country’s debris washing up in our front yard? What obligations do we have to sort, return and honor this enormous loss? I think we have the same duty we would hope for if things went the other way. I heard that a soccer ball found in Alaska was returned to the boy who lost it in the tsunami. My daughter, Kathy, lost her wedding ring and many other treasured possessions in Katrina after a hurried evacuation. I can’t help but think what it would mean to her to have even one of them returned intact. Instead, they are buried in toxic mud or already scraped up and added to some landfill. I hope we can do better by our Japanese neighbors.

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