It's been more than a year since a massive quake devastated northeast Japan, and the debris believed to be from that disaster is now washing up more than 4,000 miles away in Alaska. The Styrofoam that's washing up breaks into little pieces and the wildlife, thinking it is food, will eat it -- causing a negative chain reaction. "The little fish are going to eat some of this stuff and not get the nutrition they need," explained Bill Lucey of the Yakutat Salmon Board. "So they're not going to grow that fast, so they're either going to die or get eaten by predators more readily or they just won't be able to compete in the natural world as well."
Yakutat, Alaska (CNN) -- Residents of towns in the Alaska Panhandle have begun picking up plastic bottles, chunks of foam insulation and floating buoys from Japan's 2011 tsunami.
"This is urethane spray building foam," Chris Pallister, president of the conservation group Gulf of Alaska Keeper, said as he picked through trash on Montague Island, about 200 miles north of Juneau. "We just never got much of that before. But if you walk up and down this beach, you see big chunks."
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The foam comes from the walls of buildings that were smashed to splinters by the wall of water that slammed into Japan's northeastern coast after the March 2011 earthquake that left nearly 16,000 known dead. The wreckage was swept out to sea when the wave receded and has drifted 4,000 miles across the northern Pacific in the 14 months since then.
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Volunteers like Pallister have been trekking out to remote areas like Montague Island to help clean up the beaches. But they're worried they'll be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of wreckage -- estimated at 1.5 million tons -- believed to be headed toward North American shores.
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Japanese officials estimate up to 70% of the tsunami wreckage has sunk. But the rest, ranging in size from children's toys to a squid trawler sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard off Alaska in April, has been turning up off the United States and Canada for more than a month.
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It's the little pieces of Styrofoam that worry conservationists like Pallister, who says there may be billions of them out there.
"Albatross and sea birds eat this stuff like crazy, and it's killing the hell out of them," he said.
Alaskans have been asking for help from the federal government. But the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said last week it doesn't have the budget to clean up remote areas. NOAA's marine debris program is facing a 25% cut under the budget the Obama administration has submitted to Congress -- so the cleanup may become the problem of cash-strapped states, already struggling to make ends meet.
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At a Senate hearing last week, the head of NOAA's Ocean Service, David Kennedy, said the bulk of the debris wasn't expected to hit until 2013. But he said it was "incredibly expensive" to clean up.
"You got to have ships to get out there," Kennedy said. "You got to have people, then you got to have some place to do away with it ... We can't begin to touch, especially in remote areas, if there is substantial new amounts of debris, what's going to be required to remove it."
Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, the chairman of the Senate Commerce subcommittee that held the hearing, said NOAA's position was "somewhat frustrating."
"The role of the federal government in emergencies is to assist states, not just say, 'It's your responsibility, good luck,' because that's not acceptable," Begich, a Democrat, told Kennedy.
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Much of the debris can be found on remote islands like Montague Island in the Prince William Sound, which is accessible only by boat or plane. Chris Pallister, who runs a non-profit dedicated to keeping Alaska's coastline clean, says he's never seen some kinds of this of debris before, including this yellow urethane spray building foam insulation. "Acres of these things (were) just stacked up before the tsunami (in Japan)," Pallister said of the insulation. "Those yards are empty now and this is where they all are."
Bald eagles are part of the delicate ecosystem in Yakutat, and their habitat may be affected by the trash and chemicals reaching Alaska's southeastern shores.
Debris litters a stunning remote beach on the Alaskan coast called Black Sand Spit at the mouth of the Dangerous River near Yakutat.
Japanese writing marks the side of a green bucket found on Montague Island.
More than 250 miles inland from Montague Island lies the remote Alaskan town of Yakutat. This coastal town has just 650 residents but it is home to a booming fishing industry. Large catch, like this halibut, comes in not far from where tsunami debris is washing up on shore and is processed at Yakutat Seafood Company for quick delivery to markets and restaurants all over the country. Alaska's fishing industry is trying to reassure consumers across the country that its product is safe to eat. Greg Indreland, the owner of Yakutat Seafood, says he's not worried now -- but he fears what toxic substances may be lurking in the Pacific and headed his way.
Chris Pallister braves the elements on Montague Island to survey debris for the Marine Conservation Alliance. He said the yellow urethane spray building foam insulation, which came from stockyards and from crushed structures in Japan, started showing up in January. "We just never got much of that before, but if you walk up and down this beach you see big chunks," he said.
Japanese officials estimate up to 70% of the tsunami wreckage has sunk, but the rest, ranging in size from children's toys to a squid trawler sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard off Alaska in April, has been turning up off the coasts of the United States and Canada for more than a month. There are concerns that this trash could be tainted by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster that followed the March 2011 quake. Tests on the first wave of tsunami debris have shown no abnormal levels of radiation. Still, much of it is toxic and potentially hazardous to the environment along the rugged Alaska coastline.
A plastic float bearing the Japanese name "Musashi" is among the rubbish on Montague Island.
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