Bringing in the debris </MCC HEAD>

Story last updated at 7:15 PM on Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Bringing in the debris

By Michael Armstrong
Staff Writer

Gulf of Alaska Keeper, a nonprofit marine debris clean-up organization, finished cleaning Gore Point last Saturday when it brought to the Homer Harbor more than 45,000 pounds of trash and buoys collected at the point east of Port Dick at the lower end of the Kenai Peninsula. The debris came in on Otto Kilcher's landing craft, the M/V Constructor.

Photo by Michael Armstrong
Otto Kilcher, in forklift, carries a load of marine debris from his boat, the M/V Constructor, at the Homer Harbor last Saturday.

Chris Pallister, co-director of Gulf of Alaska Keeper, or GoAK, said between 450 and 500 cubic-yards of debris was loaded on Kilcher's boat. Last Friday, Maritime Helicopters lifted debris bundled in Super Sacks bags designed to hold heavy loads across the Gore Point isthmus from the east and north beaches to Kilcher's boat anchored on the west side of the Gore Point peninsula.

Workers also collected debris on the Gore Point west beach, Port Dick beaches and bays, and Tonsina Bay. About 70 percent of the debris came from the Gore Point beaches, Pallister said. The debris was taken to the Homer landfill, and buoys were set aside for local fishermen to salvage.

GoAK received funding for the initial Gore Point cleanup from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation provided up to $42,000 to finish the effort, said Bob King, marine debris coordinator for the foundation.

"We thought this was a great project to begin with," he said. "We also recognized it was in nobody's interest to leave that debris there over the winter."

King flew out with Maritime Helicopters pilot Andrew Rose to see the airlift. He said it's remarkable to see a beach plagued with plastics for decades that is now clean.

The Marine Conservation Alliance is a commercial fishing trade group of processors and fishermen mainly involved in the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea ground fish and crab fisheries. Its foundation is a nonprofit group that also receives NOAA grants to do marine debris cleanup, including programs this summer in Kodiak, Southeast Alaska, Dutch Harbor and the Pribilofs.

GoAK also cleaned 111 miles of shoreline on 13 Prince William Sound islands this spring, Pallister said. Not counting Gore Point, King said the MCAF picked up 100 tons on Alaska beaches, including three tons on St. George Island that had accumulated from last year.