Second Anniversary of Japan's Tsunami

Floor Speech

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, today is the second anniversary of a very tragic event in Japan. An earthquake--a tsunami--claimed nearly 16,000 lives and destroyed community infrastructure, homes, and livelihoods. Years after the fact, our prayers remain with the people of Japan for the lives which were lost and for the devastation that occurred within that country.

I had an opportunity to be in Japan in January. I had a chance to see for myself some of the devastation that Japan still faces 2 years after the 3/11 tsunami and earthquake. The pictures that so many of us recall of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. We all watched with great concern as the accident in front of us unfolded. It was truly a sense of helplessness that was brought about by an act of nature. A massive earthquake which delivered a massive wave which truly brought about massive destruction.

I also had an opportunity--after viewing the Fukushima Daiichi reactor--to travel north to a small fishing village by the name of Rikuzentakata. It was a community of about 23,000 people. That community alone lost over 1,900 residents who were swept out to sea--including an Alaskan teacher, Mr. Monty Dickson, whose life was lost. To be in this fishing village 2 years after the fact and see how this community is trying to regain its footing--not only economically but emotionally--was quite compelling. Again, Japan is dealing with the aftermath of this destruction in ways those of us here probably cannot appreciate.

From an energy perspective, the country of Japan--literally overnight--went from a nation where close to 30 percent of their energy was generated by nuclear to a point where the nuclear power that was generated was truly just shut down as everything was on pause for that nation. How a nation rearranges its energy portfolio is a situation that country is dealing with as we speak.

There were connections between Japan and the tsunami that I think are still being felt today. When that tsunami hit, the people of Alaska were on alert on our coastlines. They were waiting and wondering whether we would be impacted by the giant wave that had taken the lives of so many thousands of Japanese. Well, we didn't see the big wave, but what we did see--and what we are continuing to see--is a level of marine debris that has been carried across the currents from Japan and the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington State, British Columbia, and then circling all along the coastline of my State of Alaska.

It is estimated that there is about 1.5 million tons of debris that is floating in the ocean. It was estimated by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment that there were 5 million tons of debris that washed into the ocean. They further estimated that 70 percent of that debris sank near the coast of Japan soon after the event. This is something the Japanese fishermen were greatly concerned and worried about.

What we are seeing now--as the floating debris moves its way across the currents--is debris on the shoreline of Alaska in surprising quantities. The picture behind me is some of the debris. There is roof of a house, the bottom of a boat, and buoys. It is just a floating mass of debris in the middle of the Pacific. This is just an example of some of what we have seen over the course of 2 years now.

Sometimes the sightings are pretty phenomenal, such as this picture which was off the Oregon coast. This is actually a concrete dock that floated all the way across the ocean from Japan and landed on the coast of Oregon.

I have sons who are commercial fishermen. They spend their summers out on the water. We worry about obstacles in the water that our fishing vessels could encounter. Running into a concrete dock is not something any mariner would want to do. So we think that 2 years after the fact we should have seen most of the debris we would anticipate. In fact, the vast majority is still coming our way.

These are buoys along the Alaskan shore. This was taken on Montague Island which is just off Kodiak Island. Not all these buoys are necessarily from Japan. Some are just the general marine debris that we see. But what we have been able to determine is that the Japanese buoys are coming across. Those things that are sitting higher up on the water are moving more quickly, but things that are just below the water surface are still on their way.

How do we deal with all this? How do we reach the beaches, whether it is the beaches in Oregon, California, Hawaii or Alaska? In Alaska, we have 44,000 miles of coastline. That is a lot of territory for debris to come up on, and in so much of this area in my State, these beaches are not accessible by vehicle. They are not accessible by road. It is extraordinarily difficult to deal with the cleanup.

This is a picture of marine debris cleanup in a community by the name of Yakutat, a small fishing village along the coast. What they are finding is that as the community volunteers go out and clean what beaches they can, they have no space in their small landfills there to accommodate the debris. So it would be one thing if we knew this was all we were going to be dealing with. Our reality is we know more is coming.

How we respond is going to be key. It is going to be critical to the communities that are impacted. But for so many of these areas where there are no individuals to see this, there are none to appreciate what has happened, but still we are faced with Styrofoam, plastics, nets--incredible amounts of nets--things that will not only foul the beaches but foul the animals that may be in the area. We have a responsibility to act. So how do we do it? How do we do it at a time of difficult budgets? We all appreciate that. It requires a level of creativity, if you will--partnerships with local and government officials. It requires us to be proactive in terms of what is coming to our shores.

We have asked the White House to assist with a debris cleanup task force to get all the agencies that are involved--State, tribal, Federal--to be participants in how we address these issues.

The Government of Japan last year stepped forward and provided $5 million to the affected States, plus an additional $1 million to Canada--they were not obligated to provide the money for an effort to help us address the cleanups. What we need to do in this country--again, we have asked the White House to establish this interagency task force to deal with the debris that continues to come to our shore is to determine how we engage, how we are working together to help make a difference. That is going to be critical. We also don't want to forget the private interests that are potentially engaged in the cleanup. We have so many different interests, so many different industries, and private citizens who are so dependent on our navigable waterways, our healthy ecosystems. What we need is good communication and good leadership. We need a plan to guide the interagency and the public-private partnership approach to solving the challenge. I commend the NOAA Marine Debris Program for their coordination and their response to the work. The fact is they are small. They are overtasked. They need the help of their Federal partners to address this as a national priority.

So as we continue to see increased levels of debris coming over after the tsunami, it is imperative we act to address it.

It has been interesting in the Alaska press because there have been ongoing stories about the connections. We think Japan is thousands of miles away and we don't have that connection. Beachcombers found a soccer ball with the name of a Japanese boy--a 16-year-old boy and his phone number--and were able to make that call back to the village of Rikuzentakata and tell that young man, whose family lost everything in the tsunami, that we have your soccer ball here. It made it to the shore of Middleton Island in Alaska. But for that young man to have been delivered that soccer ball, after everything else he and his family owned had been wiped out, was a reminder that we are all connected and how we can be working together to help one another.

I ask unanimous consent to have this news story from the Anchorage Daily News printed in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.

In Alaska, we have a lot of experience with helping our neighbors out. We will continue to work to address the issues, work to address the debris that is reaching our shore, but we do need a little bit of help from our government. We need a little bit of help when it comes to advancing this interagency task force so we can address what we are seeing in Alaska, what we are seeing on our coastline in the Pacific Northwest and in Hawaii as well.

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