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The largest items swept out to sea by the tsunami in Japan last March could be making landfill on Canada's west coast any day now, a U.S.-based oceanographer says.

Oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer says his computer models have shown large debris from Japan – fishing vessels, houses – will be making landfall on Vancouver Island in November.

Most of the debris has been predicted to make landfall in 2013, but the scientist says those predictions don't account for wind-pushed flotsam (floating trash).

"When you look at what floats in the water . . . you will see find many objects travel three times faster than surface water," he said in a phone interview from Seattle.

Ebbesmeyer said a large object such can travel across the north Pacific at a speed of about 35 kilometres a day.

"Those objects stick up so high out of the water they actually catch the wind and sail very fast," he said.

A smaller object -- propelled only by the ocean current – travels at closer to 11 kilometres a day.

The debris field from the March 11 tsunami is estimated to be about 1,500-kilometres long and weighing about 20-million tonnes. Ebbesmeyer likens it to the state of California flipped on its side floating north of Midway Island.

The debris is expected to make landfall from southern Alaska all the way south to the west coast of Washington over the course of three years.

Ebbesmeyer is encouraging authorities to ready an immediate action plan for the debris.

"There's going to be issues of public safety and the sheer cleanup of large amount of debris," he said.

He also says the need to cleanup and remove the objects from the beach has to be balanced with the human dimension, however.

"Each of these objects represents the part of a crash scene . . . so each object can probably be traced to a human tragedy," he said.

"When you think of the human aspect you want to make sure you go through (the debris) to make sure there are things that are not overlooked that the family might want back."

There's also a public safety issue because the large objects could contain radioactive water.

He notes that the objects may have particular cultural significance to the Japanese, citing the case of a Japanese fishing vessel that drifted ashore in Prince Rupert, B.C.

The family of the missing fisherman who was last seen on the boat came over to B.C. and made the vessel a shrine to fishermen lost at sea.

Ebbesmeyer encourages anyone who find any large objects along the west coast to contact authorities or to contact him at his website, www.flotsametrics.com.

He says if anyone takes a picture of what they have found -- for example, a fishing boat with a name on it -- they can send the picture to him and he will try to translate it and find the owner in Japan.

Ebbesmeyer's study of flotsam -- initially starting in 1990 when several containers of running shoes fell into Pacific -- changed the scientific study of ocean currents. He was educated at the University of Washington.