Last Saturday’s sunshine and balmy breeze inspired a lot of people to head to the beach. The peninsula beach access points were lined with cars from Samoa out to the North Jetty. Out on the sand, children played, dogs cavorted and people generally looked like they were enjoying the heck out of the pretty day. The only unpleasantness was the litter lining Old Navy Base Road and random trash strewn along water’s edge.

Observations suggest that the roadside accumulation results primarily from careless people failing to pack their garbage on the way to the dump – and, worse, from people who deliberately drive out to the spit as if it were a dump. (That couch, for example. Pretty sure it didn’t accidentally fall out of someone’s truck.)

The debris dotting the beach, however, is more of a mix. Some of it occurs from local litterbugs, but some originates from shores other than our own. The latter scenario has had folks worried – finding flotsam from China or Japan isn’t unusual, but now concerns about tsunami debris have ramped up attentiveness to just what is landing on our coast.

Note the recent fears surrounding a float that washed ashore at Mad River Beach a few weeks ago. Now, this item was most likely not from the tsunami that struck Japan nearly a year ago, but because people thought it might be, and thought it might therefore be radioactive, emergency response personnel had to treat it as though it was until proven otherwise. (It wasn’t.) Dan Larkin, of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office OES, summed up local events and concerns quite nicely in a March 3 Arcata Eye column.

While this was a false alarm, evidence of  Japan’s catastrophe will likely wind up on our beaches eventually – and questions about when and where this tsunami-related debris will land will continue.

To help find answers, Ocean Conservancy recently hosted a webinar with Dr. Nikolai Maximenko of the University of Hawaii and Ruth Yender, NOAA’s Japan Tsunami Marine Debris Coordinator.

Some facts:

The tsunami that struck washed between three and four million tons of debris into the sea. Most of what was pulled out to see sunk near shore, but an estimated one-to-two million tons is adrift at sea, caught in ocean currents. Most of it will end up in the doldrums of the Pacific – part of the “great Pacific garbage patch” – but some of the lumber, pieces of fishing vessels and other objects will likely make its way to the northwest Hawaiian islands by this winter, according to NOAA modeling projections, to the West Coast and Alaska next year, and to the main Hawaiian islands between 2014 and 2016.

So far, only two sightings reported to NOAA have turned out to be actual debris from the tsunami, but Yender urges everyone who sees something that might be to email disasterdebris@NOAA.gov.

She also recommended handling suspected tsunami debris just like any other trash on the beach – by removing it if possible. Fears about radiation can be set aside, Yender explained, as the debris originated over 200 square miles and washed out before the radiation leak occurred. 

So, keep your eyes out for stuff on the beach, but don’t panic if what you find appears to be trans-oceanic. And if you really want to help clean up the coast, here’s some ways to take action:

Other opportunities for ocean education and enjoyment:

More info on ocean trash: