Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll (pronounced /pælˈmaɪrə/) is an incorporated atoll administered by the United States federal government. The atoll is 4.6 square miles (12 km²), and it is located in the Northern Pacific Ocean at . Geographically, Palmyra is one of the Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati Line Islands), located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa. Its 9 miles (14.5 km) of coastline has one anchorage known as West Lagoon. It consists of an extensive reef, two shallow lagoons, and some 50 sand and reef-rock islets and bars covered with vegetation—mostly coconut trees, Scaevola, and tall Pisonia trees.
The islets of the atoll are all connected, except Sand Island in the West and Barren Island in the East. The largest island is Cooper Island in the North, followed by Kaula Island in the South. The northern arch of islets is formed by Strawn Island, Cooper Island, Aviation Island, Quail Island, Whippoorwill Island, followed in the East by Eastern Island, Papala Island, and Pelican Island, and in the South by Bird Island, Holei Island, Engineer Island, Tanager Island, Marine Island, Kaula Island, Paradise Island, and Home Island (clockwise). Average annual rainfall is approximately 175 inches (4,445 mm) per year. Daytime temperatures average 85°F (29°C) year round.
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Political status
Palmyra is an incorporated territory of the United States, meaning that it is subject to all provisions contained in the United States Constitution and is permanently under U.S. sovereignty. However, it is also an unorganized territory as there is no Congressional act specifying how it should be governed; the only relevant law simply gives the President the discretion to administer the island as best seen fit (see Section 48 of the Hawaii Omnibus Act, Pub. L. 86–624, July 12, 1960, 74 Stat. 411, attached as a note to former sections 491 to 636 of Title 48, United States Code [1]).
The issue of Palmyra's governance is generally a moot point, as there is no indigenous population remaining nor any reason to think that there will be one in the future. It remains therefore currently the only unorganized incorporated U.S. territory. It is privately owned by The Nature Conservancy and managed as a nature reserve, but administered from Washington, D.C. by the Office of Insular Affairs, United States Department of the Interior. The surrounding waters, out to the 12-mile (22.2 km) limit, were transferred to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and designated as the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in 2001. Defense is the responsibility of the United States.
For statistical purposes, Palmyra is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
There is no current economic activity on the island. Many of the roads and causeways on the atoll were built during World War II. All are now unserviceable and overgrown. There is a roughly 2,200 yard (2,000 m) long, unpaved and unimproved airstrip on Cooper Island (Palmyra Airport, ICAO code PLPA). Various abandoned World War II-era structures are found on the island.
The atoll has been manned by a group of scientists, Nature Conservancy staff and volunteers, and Fish & Wildlife representatives (totalling between four and 20 in all) for the last several years. A series of improvements in 2004 consisted of new two-person bungalows and showers for the island's inhabitants. Water is collected from the roof of a concrete building not far from the main living area of the scientists. Communal buildings of the settlement on the north side of Cooper Island (the only one on the atoll) consist of a common cooking/dining building adjacent to the Atoll's only dock and a kayak and scuba equipment storage building next to the launch ramp.
Palmyra Atoll's location in the Pacific Ocean, where the southern and northern currents meet, means that its beaches are littered with trash and debris. Plastic mooring buoys are particularly plentiful on the beaches of Palmyra, as well as plastic bottles for soft drinks, detergents, etc.
Large parts of the Atoll are closed to any sort of public access due to the threat of uncleared World War II unexploded ordnance.
History
Palmyra was first sighted in 1798 by an American sea captain, Edmund Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut, while his ship the Betsy was in transit to Asia, but it was only later—on November 7, 1802—that the first western people landed on the uninhabited atoll. On that date, Captain Sawle of the United States ship Palmyra was wrecked on the atoll.
In 1859, Palmyra was claimed by Dr. Gerrit P. Judd of the brig Josephine for the American Guano Company and the United States, in accordance with the Guano Islands Act of 1856; however, the company never started mining for guano, because there was none to be mined. Meanwhile, on February 26, 1862, Kamehameha IV (1834–1863), Fourth King of Hawaii (1854–1863), issued a commission to Captain Zenas Bent and Johnson B. Wilkinson, both Hawaiian citizens, to sail to Palmyra and to take possession of the atoll in the king's name and on April 15, 1862 it was formally annexed to the Kingdom of Hawaii.[2]
Captain Bent sold his rights to Palmyra to Mr. Wilkinson on December 24, 1862 and from 1862 to 1885, Kalama Wilkinson owned the island which was divided in 1885 between three heirs, two of which immediately transferred their rights to a certain Wilcox who, in turn, transferred them to the Pacific Navigation Company.
In 1898 Palmyra was annexed to the U.S. in conjunction with the overall U.S. annexation of Hawaii; on June 14, 1900 it became part of the then U.S. Territory of Hawaii. In the period preceding the formal annexation of the atoll by the U.S., the United Kingdom had shown interest for the atoll to become part of the "Guano Empire" of John T. Arundel & Co; and in 1889 the British had even formally annexed it. In order to end all further British attempts or contestations, a second, separate act of annexation of Palmyra by the U.S. was made in 1911.
Afterwards, by a series of agreements signed between 1888 and 1911, the Pacific Navigation Company transferred its interests to Henry Ernest Cooper Sr. (1857–1929). The third heir of Kalama Wilkinson transferred his rights to a Mr. Ringer, whose children in turn also transferred their rights to Henry Ernest Cooper Sr. (s.a.) in 1912 and who then became the sole owner of the atoll. On February 21, 1912 it was formally claimed by the U.S. government, still as part of Hawaii Territory.
In 1922 Cooper sold the whole atoll except some minor islets (the 5 "home islands") to Leslie and Ellen Fullard-Leo on August 19 for $15,000.00. The latter party established the Palmyra Copra Company to exploit the coconuts growing on the atoll. Their heirs continued as proprietors afterwards, except for a period of Navy administration during World War II.
In 1934, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra were placed under the Department of the Navy. When the U.S. Navy took over the atoll for use as the Palmyra Island Naval Air Station on 15 August 1941, the atoll was privately owned by American citizens in Hawaii. From November 1939 to 1947, the atoll had only permanently resident government representatives, styled "island commanders."
After the war, the Fullard-Leo family fought for the return of Palmyra all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won in 1947. When Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959, Palmyra was explicitly separated from the new state as an incorporated territory of the U.S., administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
In 1962, the U.S. Department of Defense used the atoll for an instrumentation site during high altitude atomic weapon tests over Johnston Island.
In July 1990, Peter Savio of Honolulu took a lease on the atoll until the year 2065 and formed the Palmyra Development Company.[3] When Savio took over the atoll he appointed Roger Lextrait caretaker of the island, and Lextrait lived there for 8 years.[4]
In December 2000, most of the atoll was purchased by The Nature Conservancy,[2] for the purposes of coral reef conservation and research. The Cooper family still owns two of the five Home Islands.[2] In 2003, a scientific study was published regarding fossil coral washed up on Palmyra Atoll. The fossil coral was examined for evidence of the behavior of the El Niño effect on the tropical Pacific over the past 1,000 years.[5] In November 2005, a worldwide team of scientists joined with The Nature Conservancy to launch a new research station on the Palmyra Atoll in order to study Global warming, disappearing coral reefs, invasive species and other global environmental threats.
The Sea Wind murders
In 1974 Palmyra was the site of the notable double murder of Malcolm "Mac" Graham III and Eleanor LaVerne "Muff" Graham, covered extensively in the true crime book And the Sea Will Tell by Vincent Bugliosi and Bruce B. Henderson. Duane ("Buck") Walker (now known as Wesley G. Walker) was found guilty of Muff's murder and served 22 years, paroled in September 2007.
References
- ↑ Title 48 Chapter 3. US Code Collection. Cornell Law School. URL retrieved February 10, 2007.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Palmyra Atoll". US Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
- ↑ "Peter Savio". ZoomInfo.com. Zoom Information Inc.. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
- ↑ "Roger Lextrait: The King of Palmyra Island" (2007-08-29). Retrieved on 2008-01-20.
- ↑ K. M. Cobb et al., El Niño/Southern Oscillation and Tropic Pacific Climate During the Last Millennium, Nature, Vol. 424, 17 July 2003
- Rowlett, Curt (2006). Labyrinth13: True Tales of the Occult, Crime & Conspiracy, Chapter 6, The Curse of Palmyra Island. Lulu Press. ISBN 1-4116-6083-8.
External links
- Palmyra atoll
- Palmyra Island
- Palmyra Atoll NWR
- The Curse of Palmyra Island
- The Nature Conservancy in Palmyra Atoll
- United States v. Fullard-Leo (Supreme Court opinion; includes a history of the island's ownership)
- WorldStatesmen- U.S.
- History of Palmyra Atoll
- The Palmyra Gazette
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