A large-scale cleanup is getting underway in Alaska, with tons of marine debris – some of it most likely from the 2011 tsunami in Japan – set to be airlifted from rocky beaches and taken by barge for recycling and disposal in the Pacific Northwest.
Hundreds of heavy-duty bags of debris, collected in 2013 and 2014 and stockpiled in Kodiak, will also be shipped out. The barge is scheduled to arrive in Kodiak by Thursday, before setting off on a roughly one-month venture.
The scope of the project, a year in the making, is virtually unheard-of in Alaska. It was spurred, in part, by the mass of material that has washed ashore – things like buoys, fishing lines, plastics and fuel drums – and the high cost of shipping small boatloads of debris from remote sites to port, said Chris Pallister, president of the cleanup organization Gulf of Alaska Keeper, which is coordinating the effort.
Mr. Pallister estimates the cost of the project at up to $1.3 million, with the state contributing $900,000 from its share of the $5 million Japan provided for parts of the United States affected by tsunami debris. Crews in British Columbia will be able to add debris to the barge as it passes through, chipping in if they do. Mr. Pallister’s group has committed $100,000. Delays due to weather could drive up costs, which he said was a concern.
Many of the project sites are remote and rugged. Crews working in places like Montague Island in Prince William Sound, for example, get there by boat and sleep onboard. The need to keep moving down the shoreline as the cleanup progresses, combined with terrain littered with boulders and logs, makes it tough to set up a camp, Mr. Pallister said.
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