Tsunami carried a million sea creatures from Japan to US west coast

The deadly tsunami that struck north-east Japan in 2011 has carried almost 300 species of sea life thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean to the west coast of the United States.

In what experts are calling the longest maritime migration ever recorded, an estimated one million creatures – including crustaceans, sea slugs and sea worms – made the 4,800-mile (7,725km) journey on a flotilla of tsunami debris.

“This has turned out to be one of the biggest unplanned natural experiments in marine biology – perhaps in history,” said John Chapman, an expert at Oregon State University who co-authored a study of the creatures published this week in the journal Science.

The towering tsunami, triggered by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake on the afternoon of 11 March 2011, generated five million tonnes of debris from the three prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima.

About 70% sank quickly to the ocean floor, according to experts, but countless buoys, docks, boats and other items with buoyancy were swept out to sea.

Between June 2012 and February this year 289 Japanese species attached to 600 pieces of debris washed up on beaches in the states of Washington, Oregon, California, British Columbia, Alaska and Hawaii, according to the study.

Some of the creatures – about two-thirds of which had never been seen on the US west coast – reproduced as they drifted eastward.

“The diversity was somewhat jaw-dropping,” said James Carlton, a marine sciences professor at Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts. “Molluscs, sea anemones, corals, crabs, just a wide variety of species, really a cross-section of Japanese fauna.”

Although the rate of new arrivals has slowed, researchers were still discovering colonised tsunami wreckage on west coast beaches when their study ended earlier this year.

Only last year – five years after the disaster – a Japanese boat arrived in Oregon with 20 fish native to the western Pacific inside. Some of the fish can be viewed at an aquarium in the state, Carlton said.

The tsunami flotilla is a reminder of the threat that millions of tonnes of plastic pose to the global marine environment.

Most of the creatures found in the US were attached to buoys, boats, crate and other items made from plastic, fibreglass and other materials that do not decompose.

“I didn’t think that most of these coastal organisms could survive at sea for long periods of time,” said Greg Ruiz, a marine biologist at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, who co-authored the study.

“But in many ways they just haven’t had much opportunity in the past. Now, plastic can combine with tsunami and storm events to create that opportunity on a large scale.”

Experts say it will be several years before they can say if any of the creatures have colonised on the west coast, which might pose a threat to native marine life.

The creatures are not the only products of the tsunami to have generated interest on the other side of the Pacific. In April 2012 a couple in Alaska found a football belonging to Misaki Murakami, a Japanese teenager who had lost his home in the disaster.

One month later a Harley-Davidson motorcycle lost in the disaster washed up on a Canadian beach 4,000 miles away.

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Supreme Court poised to deal a sharp blow to unions for teachers and public employees

The Supreme Court is poised to deal a sharp blow to the unions that represent millions of teachers and other public employees, announcing Thursday it will consider striking down the mandatory fees that support collective bargaining.

The justices will hear the case of Mark Janus, an Illinois state employee who objects to paying fees to the union, which represents 35,000 state workers.

The decision, due by next June, could prove a costly setback for public-sector unions in 22 states, including California, where such fees are authorized by law. Labor experts have predicted a significant percentage of employees would stop supporting their union if given a choice. The other 28 states have “right to work” laws that forbid requiring workers to join or support a union.

With smaller numbers, public employee unions would lose some of the political power that has made them major forces in some states, such as California, Illinois and New York.

Antonin Scalia died unexpectedly in February, leaving the court split 4-4 and unable to decide the case of Friedrichs vs. the California Teachers Assn.

Neil M. Gorsuch can — and most likely will — supply the fifth vote for a conservative ruling.

On Thursday, Gorsuch is scheduled to speak to a conservative group’s luncheon at the Trump International Hotel, and progressive groups intend to protest his appearance. They said Gorsuch’s speaking engagement raises ethical questions because the courts — and possibly the Supreme Court — may be called on to rule on a lawsuit that contends Trump’s continuing ownership of the hotel violates the Constitution’s ban on taking “emoluments” while in office.

The union fees case presents the question of whether to overturn a 40-year-old ruling. In that case, Abood vs. Detroit, the Supreme Court said it was reasonable to require all employees, not just union members, to pay to support the cost of bargaining because all of them benefited. By law, the unions are required to represent all employees, including by handling their grievances.

The Abood ruling took a middle approach on the issue. It said workers, even dissidents, can be required to support the union’s core activities, but not its political donations or lobbying. The result is that public employees can be required to pay an “agency fee,” but not the full union dues, which can include money used for campaign donations.

However, in recent years, the court’s conservatives, led by Justice Samuel A. Alito, have called the Abood ruling “questionable” and said that forcing public employees to fund a private group violates their free-speech rights under the 1st Amendment. It is a “bedrock principle,” Alito wrote in 2014, that “no person in this country may be compelled to subsidize speech by a third party that he or she does not wish to support.”

Disagreeing, the four liberal justices have said the court should leave it to the states to set their laws on unions and public employees.

The case now before the high court began two years ago when Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, then newly elected, filed a suit in federal court contending that the union fees paid by state employees were unconstitutional. Illinois Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan, a Democrat, stepped forward to defend the state law. Mark Janus, a child support specialist, and two other state employees asked to join the suit on Rauner’s side.

A federal judge tossed out the governor’s suit and said he had no standing to sue because he did not pay the fees. The judge also upheld the fees based on the Abood decision, and the 7th Circuit Court in Chicago did the same in a short opinion.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation appealed on Janus’ behalf and urged the Supreme Court to resolve the issue. It told the court there are about 11 million union employees in the 22 affected states, and of those, about half work in the public sector.

Janus, who works for the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, said he objected to paying $44 a month to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “I went into this line of work because I care about kids. But just because I care about kids doesn’t mean I also want to support a government union. Unfortunately, I have no choice,” he said in a statement.

The justices met Monday to sift through hundreds of appeal petitions from the summer, and they said they would hear the case of Janus vs. AFSCME and eight others.

One of them is another labor case that comes from Los Angeles but could affect car dealerships nationwide. At issue in Encino Motorcars vs. Navarro is whether service advisors are entitled to overtime pay. Federal law exempts “any salesman” or employee who is “primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles.” The 9th Circuit ruled that service advisors are entitled to overtime pay because they are not salesmen or do not service cars. They advise customers on what work should be done.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court agreed to hear this dispute and told the 9th Circuit to reconsider the issue. The judges in San Francisco stuck to their decision, and the justices agreed Thursday to decide the issue.

Major questions before the Supreme Court this fall »

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