Tsunami Debris From Japan Reaches Alaska

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.

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.

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.


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