Congress acts to clean up the ocean

"Marine debris has a tremendous impact on the monument because of what's there in terms of wildlife," says Seba Sheavly, coordinator of the National Marine Debris Monitoring Program, a program funded by the Environmental Protection Agency. "We have a critical situation for Hawaiian monk seals that are horribly depressed in number. In the very place where the young are learning to fish and play, it's where these old nets get caught."

Animals are not all that get snared. In August 2005, a Russian minisubmarine became snagged in an old fishing net 625 feet below the Pacific Ocean surface before being rescued. Cargo ships with propellers bound up in miles of old net pull into Hawaii for repairs, says Christine Woolaway, the Kalaeloa, Hawaii-based coordinator for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands cleanup.

But it was the heart-wrenching pictures of animals snarled in plastic packaging and old fishing lines that first grabbed public attention in the 1970s.

As of this past summer at least 130 countries including the US had ratified international agreements. Hundreds of thousands volunteer for regular worldwide beach cleanups sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group that tracks marine debris.

Yet political action, public attention, and cleanup funding have waned in the past decade, overshadowed by issues such as climate change and declining global fisheries. But hurricane Katrina, which pushed tons of debris into the Gulf of Mexico, and the new national monument, have helped give the issue some attention.

A debris-marine bill sponsored by Sens. Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii and Ted Stevens (R) of Alaska, was approved by the Senate last year.

Then, last month, the House unanimously approved the legislation, which sends $15 million and a mandate to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Coast Guard, and other agencies to rev up their garbage compactors.

It also provides modest grant funds for research, sets up a trash-tracking database, and mandates that federal agencies educate the public.

"We need some help, that's for sure, because there's more debris out there on those islands than any one agency can handle," says Ms. Woolaway.

Since 1995, at least 680 tons have been removed in the cleanup along the islands – much of it in old nets. With little landfill space in Hawaii, an automotive salvage company shreds the nets with the residue burned to make electricity in an electric company boiler.

But even after a thorough cleanup, the next year tons more debris wash ashore from the eastern garbage patch.

"Every single piece of trash on the beach or in the water has a person's face behind it – it's that simple," Ms. Sheavly says. "The cigarette lighters, shampoo bottles – the animals on the island didn't do that. It comes from improper waste management practices. This is a fixable problem, and the answer is simple: We've got to have more awareness and give people an opportunity to change their behavior."

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