Official: Dock found in Ore. is debris from Japan

[uppityperson]

Source: Seattle Times

A nearly 70-foot-long dock that floated ashore on an Oregon beach was torn loose from a fishing port in northern Japan by last year's tsunami and drifted across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean, a Japanese Consulate official said Wednesday.

A commemorative plaque on the dock showed it was one of four owned by Aomori Prefecture that broke loose from the port of Misawa on the northern tip of the main island, Deputy Consul Hirofumi Murabayashi said from Portland, Ore.
(clip)

The one that floated to Oregon was first spotted floating offshore Monday, and mistaken by several people for a barge, said Chris Havel, spokesman for the Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation. It washed ashore early Tuesday on Agate Beach, a mile north of Newport on the central Oregon Coast. It's made of concrete with a metal pontoon and measures 66 feet long, 19 feet wide and 7 feet high

(clip)
John Chapman, a research scientist at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center, said hundreds of millions of other organisms also hitchhiked across the ocean on the dock - some of which are invasive species never before seen on this part of the West Coast....(more)

Read more: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2018367472_apuscoastaldebris.html

---

Wow. And no, not radioactive since washed away before the nuke poof.

[Bette Noir]

1. What are the odds?

It washed up within a mile of a marine science center and a NOAA office.

[bhikkhu]

2. pic:

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. I wonder who gets the scrap metal rights.

The guys driving up and down my alley would kill for that.

[dipsydoodle]

6. And video here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18349741

[AtheistCrusader]

3. New vector for invasive species?

I guess probably no more so than a log. Still, one wonders what all hitched a ride.

[slackmaster]

7. Yes, the fact that a species hasn't been seen on the West coast doesn't mean there has never...

...been one here by way of driftwood, a derelict vessel, etc.

Most exotic species simply die when they are away from their native environment, but the concern may be valid. Several years ago a co-worker who has chosen a vegan diet told me that a relative sent her two live Maine lobsters for Christmas. She and her fiance wouldn't eat them, but also didn't want to give them to someone else only to be eaten. So they went down to the La Jolla Cove and were preparing to release the animals when they happened to be spotted by a fish and game officer.

He gave them a brief lecture and confiscated the lobsters, but didn't formally cite them.

I'm sure the officer and his wife had a nice dinner that evening.

[Mojorabbit]

4. Wow, I lived there in the late seventies. Long trip across the ocean! nt

[bettydavis]

8. I'm officially freaking a little bit now...

how the hell are we going to clean this stuff up? get ready folks. Fukushima Disaster II. amazing screen play in this though. trying to look on the bright side. : /

[slackmaster]

9. I say we make a contest out of sinking it. High-order explosives would be needed.

Or turn it all into art.

[yellowcanine]

10. Floating debris yields good data about ocean currents.

A while back a shipload of athletic shoes which sank yielded all kinds of useful data.

[Meiko]

11. Good thing an oil tanker or container

ship didn't hit that thing. I suppose it would show up on radar but it's still pretty scary.