Hearing of the Fisheries Water, and Wildlife Subcommittee of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee - Statement on: "Marine Debris and Wildlife: Impacts, Sources, and Solutions."

Hearing

Good morning. The purpose of this hearing is to examine impacts and sources of
marine debris on wildlife populations and potential solutions to this issue.

For coastal states, particularly those on the West Coast, the prevalence of marine
debris on our shores is a chronic issue. Marine debris results from a number of
man-made sources including derelict fishing gear, poor solid waste management
practices, major storm events, and everyday litter.

In March 2011, a large earthquake struck off the Japanese coast, causing a large
tsunami and tragically killing or displacing tens of thousands of people. While
much of the media attention rightly focused on this tragic outcome, and the related
situation with the Fukushima nuclear power plant, another less reported story was
unravelling.

The 2011 tsunami washed millions of tons of debris into the Pacific Ocean, most of
which eventually made its way to the Pacific Northwest of the United States. In
some of the most extreme examples, a 185 ton dock washed up on Washington's
Olympic Coast, the U.S. Coast Guard was forced to sink a floating ghost ship off
Alaska before it struck the shore, and a motorcycle washed ashore Western
Canada.

Today, Alaska is still dealing with the impacts of this event, and one of our
witnesses here today will discuss his organization's efforts and experiences while
cleaning this mess. In addition to the organization represented here today, there are
others in Alaska conducting important response and research work, such as the
Sitka Sound Science Center. And in another example, the Alaska Pinniped
Entanglement Group is a coalition of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the
Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, and NOAA focused on freeing tangled marine
mammals from marine debris.

NOAA has identified a number of hotspots, where debris accumulate in large
quantities due to ocean currents and other factors. Mostly in the Pacific, these so-called
"garbage patches" have been known by scientists for years. Yet, what is less
known is the impacts of these debris on marine and land based birds, mammals,
and other species and their ecosystems. I am hopeful that today's hearing will shed
some additional light on these effects and identify research gaps.

While the problem of marine debris is apparent, there are no clear answers on how
best to solve it.

The United States has taken major steps to address issues here at home, and the
plastics industry has proactively pursued ways to address debris in the marine
environment. In Alaska and other coastal states, most debris comes from foreign
sources, as evidenced by the volume of materials collected on our shores bearing
labels written in Chinese, Russian, Filipino, Indonesian, and many other foreign
languages.

As a result of the tsunami, in 2012, the Japanese government gifted $5 million to
the U.S. government to assist in debris removal and response efforts. This one time
infusion of funds supplemented NOAA's modest annual congressional
appropriation for the Marine Debris Program. The authorization for the Marine
Debris Program has lapsed, but fortunately Congress has continued to fund this
important work.

But, beyond funding response and clean-up work, how can the United States help
encourage better sanitation management practices in developing countries, and
what innovative ideas exist to solve these problems? These are some of the
questions that I hope this hearing will help answer.

I'm pleased to have a distinguished and diverse panel of witnesses here this
morning. Thank you all for being here.

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