Dock on Wash. coast confirmed as tsunami debris
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - The dock that washed ashore on a remote Washington beach last month has been confirmed as debris from the March 2011 tsunami in Japan.
The state Marine Debris Task Force says it was identified by the Japanese government through photos that showed a fender serial number. The dock came from the Aomori Prefecture and is similar to the dock that washed ashore last summer at Newport, Ore., also from the tsunami.
The Coast Guard spotted the dock Dec. 18 on a beach near Forks. It's within a wilderness portion of Olympic National Park and also within the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and will be removed.
A crew has already scraped off 400 pounds of marine plants and animals in an attempt to prevent any invasive species from taking hold.
The state Marine Debris Task Force says it was identified by the Japanese government through photos that showed a fender serial number. The dock came from the Aomori Prefecture and is similar to the dock that washed ashore last summer at Newport, Ore., also from the tsunami.
The Coast Guard spotted the dock Dec. 18 on a beach near Forks. It's within a wilderness portion of Olympic National Park and also within the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary and will be removed.
A crew has already scraped off 400 pounds of marine plants and animals in an attempt to prevent any invasive species from taking hold.
Seriously, Homer Simpson could have figured that one out.
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I donât know if anyone remembers that we have a trade current which sweeps around from China and Japan up North and then down the US Pacific coast. For untold 10âs of thousands of years storms to the West have been tearing things loose and which are picked up by that current and transported over here. Guess what, they almost all have some growth on them. Those neat glass fishing floats we used to see all of the time? Yup, they did not come by ship. They were carried along with planks, logs, plastic bottles, tree trunks, and who knows what else. All of them with marine growth hanging on for the ride. Every major storm over there uproots and demolishes buoyant debris, some of which arrives over here in a few years. So lets get worried about 400 pounds of it on a nice usable section of dock, but donât worry about millions of tons which have made the trip over the past thousands of years.   Â
How much did that cost to figure out?  I think we should start diverting training for our service member to try and blow these thing out of the water before the make land fall and if the do one would think our coast guard or national guard could find a quickly possibly fun way of getting ride of them.
Here's the Washington State Marine Debris Task Force:
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http://cheezburger.com/6981196544
I'm so glad to hear that a team of SaWa EXPERTS (?) have been able to ascertain that a floating dock with Japanese writing on it and covered with marine life indigenous to the waters off Japan has been found to have come from Japan. No expense is to great when digging for the truth. But I can't help but wonder just how much it cost us to get this EXPERT opinion.
@lmdk2 They didnt know what the characters or writing was until they translated it with Bing Language Translation.
File this under "No $***, Sherlock."
Good to know...good to know...now what.
Thanks to the strike force "aka" Marine Debris Task Force for saving us from debris washing up on our shores and saving us from all those unseen dangers floating in the Pacific..
That's ridiculous, would have had invasive sheep on it, duh!
Task force...
Anyone get a visual of these guys fast-roping out of a Blackhawk helicopter with night vision goggles on?
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 @northwestsurfer http://cheezburger.com/6981196544
Well that clears that up, I was thinking it was from Wyoming.