Japanese Tsunami Debris Reportedly Sighted Near Washington's Olympic National Park

PHOTO: More Japanese Tsunami Debris May Have Reached U.S.
This image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows a large ocean-drifting dock that washed ashore in an extremely rugged and remote section of coast in the Olympic National Park Tuesday Dec. 18, 2012. It was found between LaPush and the mouth of the Hoh River. The Coast Guard mounted a series of flights to locate the dock after it was spotted adrift in the ocean last Friday by fishermen aboard Fishing Vessel Lady Nancy. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration worked to determine the docks trajectory based on the reported location at the time of the sighting. It has not been confirmed whether the dock is a piece of debris from the devastating March 2011 tsunami in Japan. (AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard)
This image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows a large ocean-drifting dock that washed ashore in an extremely rugged and remote section of coast in the Olympic National Park Tuesday Dec. 18, 2012. It was found between LaPush and the mouth of the Hoh River. The Coast Guard mounted a series of flights to locate the dock after it was spotted adrift in the ocean last Friday by fishermen aboard Fishing Vessel Lady Nancy. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration worked to determine the docks trajectory based on the reported location at the time of the sighting. It has not been confirmed whether the dock is a piece of debris from the devastating March 2011 tsunami in Japan. (AP Photo/U.S. Coast Guard)

Federal, state and tribal officials in Washington State are working to reach a huge piece of debris they believe could be from last year's Japanese tsunami that has washed ashore in a remote section of Olympic National Park on the northwest Washington coast, reports the Associated Press.

The massive dock was first spotted on Dec. 14 by fishermen, who saw it floating 16 nautical miles northwest of Grays Harbor, according to Fox 12. The dock wasn't spotted again until Tuesday afternoon when a Coast Guard helicopter crew located it.

"They were out in challenging conditions looking for a needle in a haystack, and they found it," Washington Governor Chris Gregoire said in a statement, reports NBC News.

The object appears similar to a dock that turned up in Oregon in June. The 165 tons of concrete and steel, measuring 66 feet long, 19 feet wide and 7 feet high floated ashore on Agate Beach, a mile north of Newport, in Oregon.

Now that the dock has been found, the main concern is invasive species.

Volunteers scrubbed and sterilized the Oregon dock found this summer in an attempt to stop the possible spread of the hundreds of millions of individual organisms, including a tiny species of crab, a species of algae, and a little starfish all native to Japan that made the 5,000 mile trip, according to the Associated Press.

John Chapman, a research scientist at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center, said about the Oregon dock, "This is a very clear threat." He told AP, "It's incredibly difficult to predict what will happen next."

On Tuesday, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber signed a state plan to deal with Japanese Tsunami Marine Debris (JTMD) washing ashore.

Japan estimates the tsunami swept about five million tons of debris into the Pacific, and that two-thirds of that sank quickly, but some of the remaining 1.5 million tons headed for the U.S. West Coast.

Through Last Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it had received 1,432 debris reports, of which 17 were confirmed as definite tsunami debris.

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