Veterans Jobs Corps Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

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TSUNAMI DEBRIS

Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue that people back home are talking about a lot. We are discussing the Federal Government's need to plan for the increasing level of marine debris that is hitting the Pacific coastline, whether it is out in Hawaii or all the way up north in Alaska. This debris is coming from the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last March. This is a subject of great discussion and debate for folks who are out fishing or walking our beaches.

We all know that tragic event claimed nearly 16,000 lives and destroyed community infrastructure, homes, and livelihoods. Our prayers continue for the ones we have lost and those who have lost their loved ones.

As horrifying as these natural disasters were, the Earth only shook anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes, and the tsunami rushed to the shore and then receded. But the devastation to property and coastlines continues as debris has moved from the shores of Japan over a year and a half later and we begin to see the debris pile up on our shores over here.

The Japanese Government has estimated that about 5 million tons of debris were carried into the ocean. We have assumed that the majority of that either sank or will sink. There is no concrete idea of how much is still floating or when the bulk of it will reach our beaches, but in Alaska we know it has been arriving.

We saw the first evidence of it last winter, and it arrived ahead of the projected timelines. It is understandable that we were not able to anticipate exactly when the tsunami debris would start arriving, but now that we are starting to see it along the shoreline there is no doubt we need to respond.

Last January, in trying to get ahead of the curve, if you will, I held a roundtable in Anchorage to find out what our State and Federal agencies were doing to prepare for the debris we knew would be coming to our shores, how the interagency work was being coordinated, and how individuals could report sightings and navigational issues.

I think I have mentioned on this floor that I have two sons out on a fishing vessel in the Gulf of Alaska. As they cross the gulf, I wonder if they will encounter debris from the tsunami?

We saw at one point in time a Japanese vessel that was literally a ghost ship, a relic from that tsunami. The Coast Guard took that vessel out of the navigation channels. Alaskans and people who live on the coast are very aware when there is stuff out in the water unchartered and unknown, and we want to understand and know a little bit more.

This past June, I joined the U.S. Coast Guard to see for myself what was washing up on some of Alaska's remote shorelines and our beaches. We flew out of Cordova, AK. We went to Kayak Island. Kayak sticks out from the coastline at an angle that allows it to collect an incredible amount of marine debris on just an average year. So the reason to go to Kayak was to see what might be there other than the typical marine debris, unusual things like nets, ropes, and buoys. We saw real evidence of what is coming our way from the tsunami. We saw colored buoys. We saw large Styrofoam blocks. There was a large container that had washed up very recently.

We have a picture from NOAA that shows some of what we saw washed up there on Kayak Island. These are all the plastic buoys. The black ones, we were told, are what we see more of coming out of Japan.

Now, you may wonder, have we been clearly able to identify whether these items came from Japan or if this was the usual marine debris? NOAA is working to sort all of that out, but there are signs that give us somewhat of an idea of whether what we saw out there on Kayak Island was typical marine debris or not.

Many saw pictures of this huge dock that recently arrived on the coastline in Oregon. Just look at the size here and think: this concrete dock had flotations on either end and traveled all the way across the Pacific literally in one huge slab up onto the Oregon beach. I think when folks looked at that picture, their word was, Wow.

Again, for those who are navigators and fishermen, if they run across something like this in the water it is real evidence of why we need to be concerned.

This next photo is from somewhere in the Pacific. This shows the objects that are creating, again, a hazard to navigation. These same materials are going to end up somewhere on a shoreline, whether it is on our beaches or in our ports. Think about the impact this may have on sensitive habitats, making them unusable, possibly deadly for certain marine animals, such as shore birds and other species that may rely on them.

I think what is important to recognize from these three pictures I have just shown is that we are seeing now the debris that is floating on top or at least partly on top of the water. We are seeing it coming to U.S. shorelines earlier than anticipated because in addition to being carried by the currents from the ocean, this debris is being moved along by the wind.

What we are seeing in Alaska primarily are those buoys that sit up clear out of the water. You can also see fishing boats, building materials, and roofs in this photograph. Again, this is what we can see because it is above the water.

So one of the real questions we need to ask is, What is below the water? What is just below the surface that we can't see?

A couple of weeks ago, I met with some representatives

from the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe from Yakutat, AK. Yakutat is in the northern part of the Alaska panhandle, on the eastern side of the Gulf of Alaska. It is a very remote community. It is only accessible by air or by boat. The closest community is hundreds of miles away and, Yakutat is surrounded by National Park Service and Forest Service lands.

So this community--the tribe, city, borough--is meeting weekly to assess the debris that is coming up on their beaches, and they are trying to put together a response. They have done some cleanup along 15 miles of area beaches.

One beautiful beach is called Cannon Beach. It has black sand. It is absolutely gorgeous. I visited it in March, and now we are seeing the Styrofoam, housing foam, and buoys coming up on it and the other beaches near Yakutat. The community estimates that they have about 600 pounds of marine debris per mile. The borough has 1,074 miles of coastline, so this small village community is looking at the possibility of 3,000 tons of debris.

This next picture is actually from Yakutat. This details another problem that our coastal communities are facing. What do we do with this marine debris? Our landfills, particularly in southeastern Alaska, are maxed out or close to being maxed out. This landfill space that is already filling up could very quickly be overwhelmed by tsunami debris. And not only are my residents working to clean up beaches with limited landfills, often they are in very rugged and very remote locations, many with no road to access. Sometimes they can't land a vessel or a boat on the shoreline because it is just too dangerous. So how do we access this debris? That is a challenge.

It is also costly, and we are faced with the question of what do we do with the debris we have collected?

Yakutat is exploring some pretty creative solutions and alternative disposal solutions. Yakutat is one of those communities that has extremely high energy costs. If my memory serves me, I believe they pay in excess of 50 cents a kilowatt hour for their energy. So when they are dealing with challenges and problems, they try to find solutions that help with their high cost of energy.

What Yakutat is looking at now is whether there is the potential for any waste-to-energy technologies that could deal with two problems: clean up debris and support long-term efforts to deal with the high cost of energy. It is kind of a two-for-one. They are trying to figure out how they can turn this problem into an energy source, and in this way they can support long-term community marine debris cleanup efforts. This would be a creative solution for this small remote community, largely on their own and facing truckloads of debris.

Now the State of Alaska has engaged in tsunami debris coordination, and I am told the Alaskan region representatives of various Federal agencies are as well, but headquarters of agencies across the Federal Government really need to be part of the plan and engage creatively to address this accumulating debris.

I don't have my typical Alaska map here that I usually use when I speak, but my State has an incredible coastline--more coastline than the rest of the country put together--and we depend on our marine sources for livelihood and recreation. We value a healthy coastline to support a resilient marine environment. Our fisheries, our tourism, and our coastal communities are so dependent on a strong and sustainable region.

So, think about this from the tourism perspective. When somebody is paying thousands of dollars to come up to Alaska to visit remote, wild areas, they are certainly going to be disappointed if they are greeted by a beach full of Styrofoam or pass by the many debris fields that are accumulating.

Communities up and down the coastline need assurance that the headquarters of various agencies are going to be part of the cleanup plan. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA compiled a document denoting the debris removal authorities of Federal agencies. That document outlined that the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security, and Transportation all had a role to play in debris removal.

So for this reason--and using this federal memorandum as an example--I have asked the White House to establish and lead an interagency task force to plan for tsunami debris. We also need to engage the relevant States, tribes, local governments, and international partners by inviting them to participate in this task force. We all need to work together. We cannot leave a little community like Yakutat and say: Clean up your section of the coastline.

I know private and government Japanese representatives have expressed interest in helping with the debris problem. The ability for Japan to offer experience and technology with waste-to-energy devices could provide a great opportunity for the U.S., Japan and public partnerships to come together and address the debris.

There are many reasons we need to act now. It is a difficult time of year for many of us here in Washington, DC, to think about winter storms. We are enjoying some pretty warm weather here. But we need to recognize and think about what winter weather in Alaska will mean for accumulating debris. We have a lot of areas being impacted by tsunami debris that have already had huge tide swings. If we add that to a winter storm in areas with beaches, some of the debris we see will be buried deep by the sand, and will only be uncovered when snow melts. However even during the spring, accessing the coastline can be challenging due to breakup conditions.

We have extreme tides and, of course, the weather will also move the debris up into the tree line, making access and removal even more difficult.

This last picture will give my colleagues some indication of what I am talking about when we think about the Alaska coastline. This is in a part of the State called Montague Island. With good high tides and the weather we get, downed trees are part of the ocean accumulation on the shore. You can see tucked among the trees, kind of sprinkled like confetti, some of the Styrofoam that has washed up. Again, this is marine debris we are seeing. Think about how difficult it will be to access some of this after winter storms.

Where debris lands on rough and rocky shorelines, wave action is expected to break it up. We know that happens, and I am concerned about our marine life, birds and animals consuming smaller plastic particles that have been broken down by this wave action. A piece of Styrofoam that is easy to pick up today because it is reasonably good-sized is going to be much more difficult to clean up when it has been broken down by wave action. So, again, all of this argues for prompt action.

Maybe the best we can do for now is pick up the debris and store it somewhere. But as we saw looking at the Yakutat picture, storing it in a landfill in most of these communities is probably not going to be feasible. Bailing technology could be available to Alaska communities for about $10,000, and these machines would at least support the voluntary cleanup efforts and provide a means to store the debris rather than force strained landfills to absorb the incoming debris. I throw this out because I think it is important that we get creative about this. We need to be exploring all available technologies to support the most efficient means to handle this tsunami debris and other marine debris for the long run.

Every year I attend an annual alternative energy fair. It is held in the interior part of the State at Chena Hot Springs. We always learn something good and new at this energy fair. Last year, when I was there, I saw a device that is actually in production. It is on-the-shelf technology. It may help turn much of the debris that is hitting our coastline into fuel. The device--I called it a gizmo but I know there is a much more technical term for it--processes plastics into fuel with the capacity to produce as much as 2,400 gallons per day. With fuel at over $6 a gallon in Yakutat, people are looking at this and saying, We can actually take some of the waste, the garbage, the debris, the plastic, and turn that into fuel so we don't have to pay 6 bucks a gallon to fill up a four-wheeler, truck, or boat.

Given the tight budgets across the country, again, I think we need to be creative. We need to identify and deploy all available resources and share information. We need to leverage local knowledge and our coastal residents' proximity to the debris, as well as their vested interest in the cleanup efforts.

Our Federal agencies have regional staff and they have facility resources. Many run programs that are consistent with the objectives of tsunami debris response and mitigation. For those who would suggest, Well, if it has come up on your shore, it is your responsibility; there is no Federal role here; it is up to the States to figure this out, I would remind them that in my State, much of our land is owned by the Federal Government. This picture here is of Montague Island. Montague Island is entirely within the Chugach National Forest. And, in fact, over 60 percent of my State is owned by the Federal Government, so clearly the Federal Government has a role to play in cleaning up the debris.

We also can't forget about the private interests in cleanup. Many industries and private citizens are dependent on our navigable waterways and healthy ecosystems. We need good communication, leadership, and a plan to guide an interagency and public-private approach to solve this challenge during what we all acknowledge are difficult fiscal times. I commend the NOAA marine debris program for their coordination and response to this work, but the fact is they are a small and an overtasked program. They need the help of their Federal partners to address this as a national priority.

I encourage my colleagues to join me in recognizing that marine debris is a national problem as well as a priority, and a comprehensive response to tsunami debris that we are seeing on our shoreline in Alaska and other Pacific States, in addition to Hawaii, is past due.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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