http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-plastic-debris-hawaiian-island-epa-superfund-20131118,0,4102722.story
EPA to study hazards of plastic debris on remote Hawaiian island
By Tony Barboza
November 19, 2013
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will study a remote island used
as an airstrip in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands that is often
littered with plastic debris, the first step in a process that could
eventually place it on the list of the country’s most hazardous sites.
In a letter to an environmental group, the agency said it will study
Tern Island, part of a coral reef atoll about 550 miles northwest of
Honolulu that is a breeding ground for millions of seabirds.
The decision came in response to a petition filed last year by the
Center for Biological Diversity. The group asked the EPA to study
listing a 1,200-mile span of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and part
of the so-called Pacific Garbage Patch as a federal Superfund site
because of the amount of plastic debris that floats on ocean currents
and washes ashore.
“That was a sort of big ask,” said Emily Jeffers, an attorney for the
Center for Biological Diversity. But she called the agency’s decision to
study Tern Island “an incredibly important first step towards
understanding the hazards plastic pollution poses to wildlife.”