Honolulu Thousands of tons of debris that has been drifting across the Pacific Ocean since last year's magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami in Japan could reach Hawaii and the West Coast, including California, experts said.
Material dragged to sea by the tsunami could reach the northern Hawaiian Islands this winter and on the US West Coast in 2013 or early 2014.
It could then be drawn back to the main Hawaiian Islands between 2014 and 2016, according to researchers with the University of Hawaii and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who discussed their most recent findings at a news conference on Tuesday. But don't expect anything resembling a wave of garbage.
Much of the four million to eight million tonnes of debris that washed out to sea, including entire homes, appliances and vehicles, sank off Japan's coast, experts believe.
Computer models by Nikolai Maximenko, a senior researcher at the University of Hawaii, predict that the one million to two million tonnes of flotsam still in the ocean have already spread over an expanse thousands of miles wide.
It is estimated that 1 per cent to 5 per cent of the debris could make it to the West Coast and would first reach Hawaii's Midway Atoll.
Though satellites observed thick masses of floating debris close to Japan's shore in the days after the tsunami, they lost sight of it after a month as the material sank, broke down or dispersed.
In the months that followed, the Japanese government documented reports of overturned boats, shipping containers and large pieces of wood that appeared to move east over time.
But reports of debris as it spreads out across the North Pacific Ocean have been few and far between.
Just two sightings of tsunami debris — both derelict Japanese vessels spotted bobbing in the ocean last August and September — have been confirmed by NOAA, according to Ruth Yender, the agency's Japan Tsunami Marine Debris Coordinator.
They were found drifting hundreds of miles northwest of the Midway Atoll. Only items that float easily and don't break down in the salt water and winter storms — things like buoys, plastics, barrels, fishing gear and lumber — are expected to make it the thousands of miles across the ocean to reach land in the United States.
It is "highly unlikely" that any of the debris is radioactive, Yender said.
Despite reports of buoys and other items from Japan washing up on shore in Alaska, Washington and Oregon in recent months, none have been verified as tsunami debris, Yender said.
Debris from the tsunami that does reach the United States may end up being indistinguishable from trash that already litters the shore, she noted.
