Tons Of Trash From Japanese Tsunami Headed For U.S.

The Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami that hit Fukushima, Japan on March 11th, 2011 was devastating in many ways. For Japan itself it resulted in 15,000 dead, over 130,000 forced from their homes, and countless billions in damage, which will take years to repair, and not the least of which is an ongoing Nuclear disaster involving multiple power plants. As it turns out there will also be consequences for the west coast of the United States as well.
A giant mountain of debris from the Tsunami was swept out to sea and with it went millions of tons of trash and garbage that is now floating on the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Included in the debris fields are the remains of thousands of homes that were destroyed along with countless numbers of cars, boats, furniture, tv's, refrigerators, bottles and corks, and other assorted junk. The stuff is now floating in the middle of the Pacific where ocean currents are slowly drifting it towards the west coast of the United States. Some of the debris fields are reported to be larger than the size of the state of Texas. The debris has been spotted in the Pacific by fishing boats that have reported back what they have encountered. It is now causing problems for U.S. Naval ships at sea also because it is forcing them out of their usual shipping lanes in order to steer around the floating garbage to avoid potential damage to vessels. Some of the skins of modern day Navy ships are only about 2 inches thick and are not designed to be crashing into giant fields of metal junk in the middle of the ocean. It would be potentially millions of dollars in damage otherwise so that must be avoided.
Some of the stuff is expected to hit the Hawaiian Islands by as early as January 2012 and possibly hit the west coast of the U.S. by 2013.