It might just be trash from the other side of the world, but for many, debris from the March 2011 Japanese tsunami has a sort of message-in-a-bottle appeal. For others, though—like the state and local governments charged with removing it—it’s a headache that’s only beginning.

When the first debris began washing up on U.S. shores this spring, they were curiosities to be contemplated—a football, a motorcycle, a 188-ton floating dock that gave Oregon tourism a boost. Now, though, the dislocated fragments are beginning to pile up—and no one really knows how much it’s going to cost to take out the trash.

“If we could plan for it, then we could write a check, but right now it’s as if we’ve been thrust into a dark room,” Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation’s Chris Havel told the New York Times in August. “We can’t budget that way.”

It’s impossible to say with how much clean up will cost, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration overview of the issue (NOAA is the federal agency responsible for marine debris removal). The type of debris to be removed, the amount washed ashore at a given time, and the type of shoreline to be collected from are all wild cards, the document states.

Still, given the uncertainties, the agency has put the preliminary price tag on tsunami debris at about $4,300 per ton. According to Japanese estimates cited by NOAA, there could be up to 1.5 million tons of debris floating in the open sea, and its arrival isn’t expected to really start reaching U.S. and Canadian shores for a few months.

“We’re really eying the coming winter like a stranger in a dark alley. We don’t know what’s going to jump out and mug us,” Havel told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s going to be a significant problem.”

Coastal communities are already taking a hit. Oregon, for instance, spent $250,000 on debris removal in three months, according to the New York Times. Its two-year debris removal budget is $85,000. Washington and Alaska are also looking at shortfalls that the $250,000 in NOAA debris removal grants aren’t likely to assuage.

“This is a slow-rolling disaster,” Julie Hasquet, a spokeswoman for Senator Mark Begich of Alaska, told the New York Times. “This is a major disaster, and it needs to be treated as one.”

Financial help does seem to be floating out there, but much like the debris, there’s no real indication of how much or when it will arrive. Japan on Tuesday, for instance, announced that it would contribute an unknown amount.

“Although Japan is not obliged to retrieve debris on the North American side of the Pacific, we can't say we will do nothing about it as we received enormous support from the United States and other countries after the disaster,” an official at the Cabinet Office told AFP.

In the meantime, there are others that are more sanguine about the arrival of debris—groups of enthusiasts that are organizing to collect, categorize, and in some cases, return what was lost. They’re the message-in-a-bottle crowd.

“I’m constantly struck by the idea that this is a very small planet,” Ken Campbell, who kayaks the Washington coast looking for flotsam, told the New York Times. “Something that happens on the other side of the ocean has become something you can see and touch in your backyard. It’s a pretty powerful thing.”

While we’re on the topic: The National Science Foundation last month issued a solicitation for Rapid Response Research Grants to study potential threats from debris fields on western U.S. shores. Similarly, the Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Grant Program has indentified debris removal and disposal as a preferred grant topic.