Trawl nets and buoys even boat parts and structures: these are just a few kinds of sea debris which are swept up on Alaska’s beaches every single day.
“In one clean-up that involves a team of approximately 10 at St. Paul Island, during any given year we can remove 22,000 or more pounds worth of garbage in just a week from beaches,” said Lauren Divine director of the Ecosystem Conservation Office located on island that is island that is remote Bering Sea island in St. Paul.
Marine debris is a constant issue for coastal communities like hers. Divine was a speaker on an event on marine debris in the Arctic Encounter conference in Anchorage this week.
Another panelist Fred Jay Ivanoff, senior crew leader of the Norton Sound Economic Development Corporation and a participant in a cleanup event at a camp located 50 miles to the east from Savoonga in St. Lawrence Island several years back.
“After that week , they returned to their home, and then a different family went to their camp during the weekend. They returned with the table full of trashand asked if you guys clean up the beaches?’ It happened in just the space of a few weeks,” Ivanoff said.
From 2006 to date, NOAA has funded cleanup of more than 990 tons of garbage from Alaska’s 66,000 miles coastline.
The piles of trash that are accumulating on beaches in rural areas isn’t just local, Divine and Ivanoff explained. Divine explained that the majority of the debris washed off the shores is fishing-related, typically large chunks of heavy gear.
As well as co-ordinating teams to sort and collect the waste, as well as the barge that will collect it and transport it to a local landfill or recycling center can be a costly logistical challenge.
“All often the responsibility for the cleanups falls on the local communities,” Divine said.
The funding for these initiatives is an issue. NOAA provides grants to help with cleaning efforts, and an Anchorage-based environmental group known as Zender Environmental has helped to facilitate pickups throughout Alaska by implementing the Backhaul Alaska Program.
“There isn’t enough funds to cover the costs to address the issue,” said Kristina Tirman who is the Sitka-based Alaska marine debris manager of Ocean Conservancy, which gives small grants of up to $10,000 to help fund cleanup projects.
There’s no specific procedure to hold anyone accountable for the waste that is gets tossed onto the shore, panelists stated. NOAA Fisheries biologist Erika Ammann suggested that as the volume of shipping activity increases in Alaska’s coastal waters and the industry of mariculture expands it is important to focus on stopping marine debris at its source.
The International Maritime Organization forbids ships from littering with all kinds of trash while in the ocean. Ammann added that local regulations are also necessary.
“I think it’s the perfect time to ensure that we have rules or permit requirements in place to ensure that they don’t add to the issue,” she said. “Maybe one of the requirements should be to ensure that every float you own is properly accounted for in all times in case it is lost you are responsible.”
Ammann stated that NOAA is working to establish the development of a Marine Debris Action Plan for Alaska to train the rural cleanup coordinators and connect them to resources. Ammann also hopes that the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021 will increase the amount of money available to finance the cleanup of marine debris.
