ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Cleanup workers will on Friday attack a jumble of debris from Japan's 2011 tsunami that litters an Alaskan island, as residents in the state gear up to scour their shores for everything from buoys to building material that has floated across the Pacific.

The cleansing project slated to start on Montague Island is expected to last a couple weeks, and organizers say it marks the first major project in Alaska to collect and dispose of debris from the tsunami.

---

The March 2011 tsunami, caused by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, killed nearly 16,000 people and left over 3,000 missing on Japan's main island of Honshu, and precipitated a major radiation release at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

A U.S. senator has sought to obtain $45 million to tackle the problem, and officials have cited fears about invasive species and toxic substances thought to be among the floating mess of objects.

Harley-Davidson washes up on Canadian coast

While debris from Japan is also floating toward other U.S. states along the West Coast, Alaska has a more extensive shoreline, much of it difficult to reach.

'Just a start'
Montague is an uninhabited island at the entrance to Prince William Sound, southeast of Anchorage. About a dozen volunteers and employees from the environmental group Gulf of Alaska Keeper and the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies will handle the debris-removal project at the island.

"We'll probably remove 30 to 40 tons from there. That's just a start," said Patrick Chandler, special programs coordinator for the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.

Japan has estimated 5 million tons of debris was swept out to sea, but that most of it sank, leaving 1.5 million tons floating. Still, those figures are rough estimates, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Observers flying over the Alaska coast have spotted, among other items, huge numbers of barrel-sized polystyrene foam buoys, often associated with Japanese oyster farms.

Tiny specks of polystyrene foam that break away from larger objects can be dangerous to seabirds or marine mammals, because they resemble eggs or other food morsels, Chandler said.

Japanese teen traced as owner of soccer ball found in Alaska

Another worry is that floating debris might carry invasive species, such as barnacles, that would wreak havoc in waters off Alaska and the U.S. West Coast, said Doug Helton, the Seattle-based coordinator of NOAA's office of response and restoration.

Then there is the danger from noxious substances in partly full fuel jugs, cleanup organizers said.

Last month, the U.S. Coast Guard sank a 164-foot fishing boat from the Japan tsunami that drifted near Alaska. The Coast Guard said the so-called "ghost ship" was a navigational hazard.

With more debris headed for the West Coast, questions about cleanup costs remain unanswered. Those expenses could be high in Alaska because of geographic and weather challenges.

U.S. Senator Mark Begich of Alaska suggested last week that NOAA provide $45 million as an initial outlay to fund what is expected to be a sustained and difficult beach cleanup.

Meanwhile, David Baxter, a technician who works at a Federal Aviation Administration station on the uninhabited Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, has made some notable finds on his rounds in his hobby of beachcombing.

Earlier this month, the owner of a tsunami-wrecked restaurant in the coastal Miyagi Prefecture spotted one of her buoys among Baxter's debris photos posted online. The yellow buoy was part of the restaurant's sign, he said.

Baxter has arranged to send it back to the woman. "Now that her buoy's found, she's going to rebuild," he said.

On Wednesday, the World Health Organization said increases in radiation linked to the Fukushima disaster were below cancer-causing levels in nearly all of Japan.

The agency's 124-page report also says neighboring countries had levels similar to normal background radiation and for the rest of the world there was some minor exposure through food.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency had previously confirmed that radiation levels in some Japanese milk and vegetables reached significantly higher levels than Japan allows for consumption.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• In Egypt's election, politics is a new family affair
• Aid workers targeted amid new Pakistan crisis
• From danger zone to organic farm: Israel targets mine fields
• Euro crisis turns Spanish suburbs into ghost towns
• 'Boiling point': On Lebanon’s Syria Street, a mini-civil war brews
• Jubilee treat: Canadian Mounties guard UK's queen
• Africa's Rainbow Nation troubled by racist time warp
• 'Nearly empty': A rare glimpse inside Syria rebel stronghold
• Terror suspect's eye color? UK's flying cameras know
• Analysis: How Egypt's election can transform the Middle East

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

A plastic card dropped into the ocean 33 years ago has been found on the coast of Alaska, after a potential 88,000-mile journey.

The drift card was one of thousands put into the Bering Sea by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as part of a project to find out where oil would go if there was a spill.

About the size of a postcard, it offered a reward of $1 for its return in three languages: English, Japanese and Russian.

---

It was found on a beach at Sealion Cove, near Sitka, Alaska, last month by 12-year-old middle school student and keen beachcomber Emmitt Anderson. "We never know what we're going to find ... I just like to find stuff. When I don't find stuff, I'm not very happy," Anderson told the Daily Sitka Sentinel newspaper.

'Amazingly good condition'
His father Steve contacted NOAA and was put in touch with oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer, who tracks flotsam as it rides the world's currents.

Ebbesmeyer told msnbc.com that Anderson's drift card had likely been caught in the Aleut gyre, circulating ocean currents that take three years to make an 8,000-mile orbit.

"The question is how many times did it go around? I think it's likely it went around once, it could have gone round 11 times. It's possible it went 88,000 miles. It could have short-circuited the gyre … we'll never quite know," he said.

"Everything in the ocean, particularly plastic, can travel great, great distances," he added.

Ebbesmeyer said the drift card was in "amazingly good condition."

"After 33 years in the ocean, [it] is in quite readable condition," he said. "Plastic doesn't degrade very fast."

Much of the plastic that finds its way into the sea will travel the world for years to come.

"Half of all plastic cannot sink because of its specific gravity. It's as if it was in prison in Flatland [a fictional two-dimensional world]," Ebbesmeyer said.

Study: Plastic in 'Great Pacific Garbage Patch' increases 100-fold

While Anderson's drift card did not make landing very far from where it was released, others have ended up in Europe.

"Across the North Pole, down past Greenland, down to almost New York City, over to the vicinity of London, then turn south to France. That's probably the longest certifiable drift," Ebbesmeyer said.

Even if the Sitka drift card traveled 88,000 miles that may not be the longest ever journey by a piece of plastic in the sea.

An albatross found on Midway Island in the Pacific in 2004 was found to have 512 pieces of plastic in its stomach.

One piece was discovered to have come from a downed aircraft from World War II. It was likely caught in the 12,000-mile turtle gyre, which takes about six years to make its full circle.

Ebbesmeyer said that if that piece of plastic made 10 orbits in 60 years, that would mean it traveled 120,000 miles, equivalent to about five times round the Earth.

Plastic ducks, frogs
He also tracks some 28,800 plastic bath toys called Floatees – turtles, ducks, beavers and frogs – that were lost overboard from a container ship in the mid-Pacific in 1992. 

Hundreds drifted some 2,200 miles and beached -- like Emmett Anderson's drift card -- near Sitka, Alaska.

To date, a duck was seen in Maine in July 2003, while a green plastic frog was spotted in Scotland in August 2003.

Ebbesmeyer, who usually gets one or two reports a year about the floating toys, said some of them may be approaching an epic achievement: Circumnavigating the globe.

"It's possible they have gone something like in the order of round the world," he said.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Bad neighbors for Team USA? Occupy camp axed
• WWII fighter plane found preserved in Sahara Desert
• Egypt's first TV presidential debate thrills viewers
• 88,000-mile voyage? Plastic card found after 33 years
• Hell-raising holy men: Boozy monks caught gambling
• Sources: Spy who uncovered underwear bomb plot is a Brit
• Video: Murder and corruption scandal rocks China
• Move over, Al Roker! Prince Charles becomes weatherman

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

A Japanese teenager has identified himself as the owner of a soccer ball that washed up on an Alaska beach last week – the first traceable debris to arrive in the United States from last year's tsunami.

Misaki Murakami, who comes from the city of Rikuzentakata, where more than 3,000 homes were destroyed, came forward on Sunday after reading news reports about the find.

---

Marker pen writing on the soccer ball identified the 16-year-old and the name of his school.

The soccer ball and a volleyball were discovered by David Baxter, a technician working at a radar station on remote Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wrote ina  blog post last week.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said Murakami was at home at the time of the tsunami disaster in March 2011 but managed to escape the waves by running to higher ground with his pet dog.

His family lost everything, including their home, and are currently living in temporary housing provided by the local government.

Ghost ship sinks to bottom of Gulf of Alaska 

Murakami told the news agency Sunday that he had been searching for his family's belongings but that until the ball was found he had had no luck.

Prized possession
The ball was a gift from his former homeroom teacher and his 13 classmates when he had to change schools in the same area seven years ago.

He said it was a prized possession, which he always kept hanging in a net next to his bed.

Murakami spoke with Baxter on the phone to thank him for finding his treasured ball.

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11, 2011, triggered a 75-foot wall of water that flattened waterfront towns, killing 16,000. About 3,000 people are still unaccounted for. The tsunami triggered a crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee in the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

U.S. authorities were immediately aware that the clockwise circulation of the Pacific's northern waters would deliver some remnants of that destruction to American shores.

A Japanese ghost ship, Ryou-Un Maru, turned up earlier in the Gulf of Alaska off Southeast Alaska after a 4,500-mile journey. The U.S. Coast Guard sank the vessel April 5.

In January, a half-dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first tsunami debris.

State health and environmental officials have said there's little need to be worried that debris landing on Alaska's shores will be contaminated by radiation.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Iran says it is building a copy of downed US spy drone
• Anglican official: Front-runner for top church job victim of 'naked racism'
• Poachers attack rhinos featured in Rock Center report
• Attack foiled? Afghanistan arrests five with 11 tons of explosives
• Russian ships arriving in China for naval war game
• American in Cuban prison: 'Get me the hell out of here'

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

A volleyball and soccer ball that washed ashore on an Alaskan island may be the first pieces of debris to arrive in the United States from last year's tsunami in Japan.

The sports balls were spotted by radar technician David Baxter on treeless, windswept Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Doug Helton of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle said in an agency blog post.

Baxter’s wife translated writing on the soccer ball and traced it back to a Japanese school in an area hit by the tsunami, Helton said.

---

He told the Anchorage Daily News the balls were the first tsunami debris retrieved in Alaska.

 

"There have been other items that were suspected, but this is the first one that we're aware of that has the credentials that may make it possible to positively identify it."

Helton, in the NOAA post, said the agency, the State Department and the Japanese Embassy and its Seattle consulate are working to confirm details and set up the return of other debris that comes ashore.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake off Japan's northeast coast on March 11, 2011, triggered a 75-foot wall of water that flattened waterfront towns, killing 16,000. Three thousand people are still unaccounted for. The tsunami triggered a crisis at Tokyo Electric Power's Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee in the world's worst nuclear accident in 25 years.

U.S. authorities were immediately aware that the clockwise circulation of the Pacific's northern waters would deliver some remnants of that destruction to American shores.

A Japanese ghost ship Ryou-Un Maru turned up earlier in the Gulf of Alaska off Southeast Alaska after a 4,500-mile journey. The U.S. Coast Guard ended sank the vessel April 5.

In January, a half-dozen large buoys suspected to be from Japanese oyster farms appeared at the top of Alaska's panhandle and may be among the first tsunami debris.

State health and environmental officials have said there's little need to be worried that debris landing on Alaska shores will be contaminated by radiation.

This article contains reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• NBC: Secret Service to oust up to five more agents
• Etan Patz: Second man questioned in missing boy case
• NC judge overturns death penalty due to race
• Zimmerman sorry for shooting Trayvon; bail set at $150,000
• Car parts made out of cash? Ford testing them

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

Actress Lucy Lawless and six other Greenpeace activists boarded an Arctic-bound Shell oil-drilling ship in Port Taranaki, New Zealand, on Friday morning, causing authorities to limit port access.

The group scaled a 53-meter derrick on the Liberian-flagged Noble Discoverer around 7 a.m. local time.

Lawless told msnbc.com that her heart was pounding and she was "a little shell-shocked" as they boarded, but that she now felt safe.

"We don’t need to trash the Arctic to get three more years' worth of oil," she said in a telephone interview from the ship.

---

Even as police warned them that they were breaking the law, protesters remained aboard.

After about five hours, police told the protesters, including Lawless, they were under arrest and should come down.

Lawless told police the group wasn't leaving and "we feel we have no choice morally but to stay here and get our message out," New Zealands' 3 News reported.

Earlier, Greenpeace and Lawless tweeted the occupation.

“I’m on one of the oldest drill rigs on the planet and it’s heading to the Arctic. Tell Shell to stop,” Lawless tweeted.

Unique species
James Turner, a spokesman for Greenpeace, told msnbc.com the occupation was the organization's last resort to stop Shell from drilling in the Arctic.

"We simply don’t believe Shell's reassurances that this is safe," Turner said.

He said the Arctic is the home of many unique species, and an oil spill would be virtually impossible to contain, given the area's remoteness. Turner also accused Shell of having a "poor record" regarding oil spills.

Shell says it was "disappointed" with Greenpeace's actions, 3 News reported.

"Actions such as this jeopardize the safety of everyone involved," the company said in a statement. "While we respect the right of individuals to express their point of view, the priority should be the safety of Noble Discoverer’s personnel and that of the protesters."

"Shell has undertaken unprecedented steps to pursue safe, environmentally responsible exploration in shallow water off the coast of Alaska," the statement said.

The ship was due to depart on a 6,800-mile journey to the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska, New Zealand’s 3 News reported.

A weekend departure was planned, but Shell said the protest halted ship operations.

Turner said that Shell has a limited drilling window, given the Arctic's extreme weather conditions. Drilling can only take place when the sea ice in Alaska melts, usually between July and early fall, he said. During the rest of the year, thick ice makes drilling impossible.

Turner said the occupiers have supplies for several days. "We’re there to stop the tanker from leaving," he said.

'A peaceful protest'
But Lawless, 43, said she wasn't sure how long they'd last aboard.

"Our main aim is that this be a peaceful protest, but the law will do what the law has to do," Lawless told 3 News. "We do what we feel we have to do." She told msnbc.com that she and the other protesters have respect for the police.

One person was arrested at the port gate, 3 News said.

The police commander for New Plymouth, Inspector Blair Telford, told the New Zealand Herald that his office's role was to ensure any protest was lawful and that owners and crew of the ship were allowed to go about their lawful business.

"The protesters are clearly breaking the law by trespassing on the ship and we are currently liaising with the Port of Taranaki and the harbormaster to decide the most appropriate course of action. Public safety is paramount.''

Lawless is best known for her television title role as "Xena: Warrior Princess" and currently stars in Starz's "Spartacus" as Lucretia.

She told msnbc.com she hopes her children will live in a better world. "Climate change profiteers should not be allowed to destroy our children’s future," she said.

"Companies are addicted to oil; they’re begging an intervention," Lawless said. "Shell has the technology to be one of the world leaders in a clean energy economy."