NEWPORT -- A massive dock that landed this week on Agate Beach more than a year after the Japan tsunami ripped it from its moorings is raising all kinds of questions about how to dismantle it and what to do with countless organisms that hitched a ride onboard.

But none of the questions is quite so vexing as this: How does something 66 feet long by 19 feet wide by 7 feet tall float thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean without anyone seeing it?

"I find it extremely odd that something this large could cross the ocean and not be spotted by anybody given the sophisticated equipment and all the attention that is supposed to be focused on this debris," said Tom Towslee, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's office.

"This should be a warning to everybody that this stuff is coming a lot faster than we thought it was. There are obviously things in the ocean that are a danger to shipping. This is a vanguard," Towslee said. "It's starting and at least nine months ahead of schedule as far as I can tell."

Japanese officials confirmed Wednesday that the March 2011tsunami washed the dock away from the northern city of Misawa after the devastating 9.0 earthquake hit near Honshu, Japan. Tests show it's not contaminated by nuclear radiation, officials said.

"It's one of four floating docks washed away by the tsunami, which means there are three more floating somewhere possibly," said Hirofumi Murabayahsi, deputy consul general at the Japanese Consulate in Portland. They were used by commercial fishermen for unloading catches of squid and other seafood at the Misawa port.

The dock beached in Newport late Monday or early Tuesday. Crowds gathered on the sand just south of the Yaquina Head Lighthouse as scientists and state workers examined the concrete and metal mass. Much of what they found surprised-- and worried -- them.

"Wow, how come we didn't know about it floating around out there," said John Chapman, a research scientist at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center. "It's definitely a dangerous marine hazard."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been tracking tsunami debris and created models that showed the bulk arriving next year on the Oregon coast. Recent updates to the model indicated highly floatable debris could arrive as early as the winter of 2011. But this is the first major piece of tsunami debris discovered on an Oregon beach. Debris also has washed up on Washington's coast.

NOAA issued marine advisories about the potential debris in 2011 and extended them into 2012, said Nir Barnea, safety coordinator with the agency's Marine Debris Program in Seattle.

"How it came so close and was not detected, I really don't know about that," Barnea said. "It can be a challenge to identify marine debris because once it disperses, it is difficult to detect."

Chapman is equally concerned about the innumerable organisms living on the dock. There are so many, he said he and fellow scientists joked that billions would be an underestimate.




Dock that washed up on coast teems with Japanese sea life

A massive dock with Japanese lettering that washed ashore on Agate Beach is full of tiny sea creatures native to Japan, says John W. Chapman of Oregon State University's Fisheries and Wildlife Department.

Watch video

"It looks like there is a very, very abundant community of Asian organisms that have been floating in the ocean for a year and are intact and alive on this float," Chapman said. "Everybody is worried because the majority of them do not live on this coast."

They include oysters, mussels, sponges, worms and lots of crustaceans, some of which have already been introduced in other places such as the East Coast where they compete with native organisms.

"The other thing astonishing to us is that they should have died or starved to death, but are obviously in very good shape. They did very, very well floating across the ocean on this thing. They didn't die, they thrived," Chapman said.

Scientists have already taken numerous samples from the dock, but Chapman planned to return at the next low tide to take more.

"We are overwhelmed already with what is here," he said. "We are going to try to identify as much as we can so we learn from this and so we have a way of identifying whether or not any of these things arrive here in the future. ... Not many accidental introductions that I know of are good news."

The best way to prevent the foreign species from spreading beyond the dock is to scrape it clean and haul the organisms away in a dump truck, he said.

Oregon state parks staff checked the dock for radiation that may have come from the Fukushima nuclear accident after the tsunami, but it came back clean, said Chris Havel, spokesman for the agency.

Now, they must decide how to get rid of the dock itself. Options remain towing it away or taking it apart on the spot.

"We have to figure out which was most workable and most affordable," Havel said. "We have to keep in mind if you do get it towed off, what do you do with it?"

One idea is to sink it; another is to take it to the Port of Newport and salvage it, he said. Officials in Japan said the dock could be reused, but if it's dismantled, it contains no hazardous materials and shouldn't pose any risk.

While scientists and state workers pondered the many challenges ahead, others saw the huge dock as a memorial of sorts.

Pam and Jeff Crow spotted it from the road leading to the lighthouse and thought it might be cool to see an object from so far away. But once on the beach, their thoughts turned grave.

"Someone put flowers on it," said Jeff Crow. "I feel bad for all the people who lost their lives."

"Seeing the flowers," said Pam Crow, "it is a reminder ... and it's so sad."