SEATTLE (AP) — A ship conducting a fisheries survey for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found a half-
dozen floats with Japanese writing on them off the coast near
the mouth of the Columbia River. A spokeswoman for the Northwest
Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, Vicky Krikelas, says the
floats may be debris from the Japanese tsunami. They were found
this week about 22 miles off Cape Disappointment by NOAA
scientists on a chartered fishing vessel conducting a survey of
bottom fish. A number of other floats believed to have been
washed away by the tsunami have been found in recent months on
Washington beaches. The floats were used by fishermen and oyster
farms. The find also comes a few days after a large Japanese
dock ripped loose by the tsunami washed ashore near Newport,
Ore., about 130 miles to the south. The dock was covered in
hundreds of millions of individual plant and animal organisms,
many of which were potentially invasive species. State
scientists and volunteers spent Thursday