Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll, or Palmyra Island, is a small, low-lying, uninhabited atoll in the central Pacific Ocean, controlled by the United States. It is one of the Northern Line Islands, and is located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly one-third of the way between Hawaii and American Samoa. North America is about northeast and New Zealand the same distance southwest, placing Palmyra Atoll at the approximate center of the Pacific Ocean. The land area is, with about 9 miles of sea-facing coastline and reef. There is one boat anchorage, known as West Lagoon, accessible from the sea by a narrow artificial channel and an old airstrip; during WW2, it was turned into a Naval Air Station for several years and used for training and refueling. It was shelled by a submarine in December 1941, days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but was not the site of a major battle. Palmyra has, over time, had many of its islets merged together, so the actual amount of contiguous land depends on the tide and locations of sandbanks. For example, Strawn, Menge, and Cooper Islands are one contiguous island. Likewise, there are many shoals and coral heads on the atoll, which is ringed by a coral reef.
It is the second-northernmost of the Line Islands and one of three American islands in the archipelago, along with Jarvis Island and Kingman Reef. Palmyra Atoll is part of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument, the world's largest marine protected area. The atoll comprises submerged sand flats along with dry land and reefs. It comprises three lagoons separated by coral reefs. The western reef terrace is one of the biggest shelf-reefs, with dimensions of. Over 150 species of coral inhabit Palmyra Atoll, double the number recorded in Hawaii.
Palmyra Atoll has no permanent population, but there are a steady stream of temporary staff and visitors for research, tourism, and other projects such as marine science or survey work. It is administered as an incorporated unorganized territory, presently the only one of its kind, by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior. The territory hosts a variable transient population of 4–25 staff and scientists employed by various departments of the U.S. government and by The Nature Conservancy, as well as a rotating mix of Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium scholars. Submerged portions of the atoll are administered by the Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs.
In 2000, most of the land on the atoll, excluding only the Home and possibly Sand islets, was bought by The Nature Conservancy for US$30 million from the Fullard-Leo family.
Geography
The atoll consists of an extensive reef, three shallow lagoons, and a number of sand and reef-rock islets and bars covered with vegetation—mostly coconut palms, Scaevola, and tall Pisonia trees.Many of the islets are connected. Sand Island and the two Home Islets in the west; Quail, Whippoorwill, and Bunker Islands in the north; and Eastern, Fern, Bird, and Barren Islands in the east are not. 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, Bunker 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, the Home Islets, and Sand Island.
Palmyra Atoll is in the Samoa Time Zone, the same time zone as American Samoa, Midway Atoll, Kingman Reef and Jarvis Island.
Incorporation into the United States
In The Insular Cases, the Supreme Court held incorporated territories to be integral parts of the United States, as opposed to mere possessions. The incorporated Palmyra Atoll is the southernmost point of the incorporated United States, with its southernmost shore at 5°52'15" N latitude. U.S.-controlled territories such as American Samoa are farther south, but they are not incorporated territories.Climate
Average annual rainfall is approximately per year. Temperatures average year round. The atoll has nearly the highest oceanicity index and one of the lowest diurnal and annual temperature variations of any place on Earth. Nauru has more consistent nighttime temperatures with every month recording 77 °F average, as well as more evenly spread precipitation.Official names
Although Palmyra is a coral atoll with several islets, not a single island, it has been called Palmyra Island since its discovery in 1802. More recently it is for some purposes called Palmyra Atoll. The name of the federal territory retained by Congress since 1959 is Palmyra Island, but the official name of the National Wildlife Refuge within the territory is Palmyra Atoll, as is the corresponding division of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. Formal deeds, leases and federal orders for land there call it Palmyra Island. Further, the islets on the atoll are also named island, such as Kaula Island, Cooper Island, and others. The biggest single island is Cooper Island, located on the lagoon's north side.Political status
Palmyra is an incorporated territory of the United States, meaning that it is subject to all provisions of the U.S. Constitution and is permanently under American sovereignty. Palmyra remains an unorganized territory. No Act of Congress since Hawaii statehood in 1959 has specified how Palmyra is to be governed. The only relevant federal law gives the president the authority to administer Palmyra as directed or via the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii. Executive Order 10967, effective October 10, 1961, provided that the Department of the Interior be responsible for all executive, legislative, and judicial authority of its civil administration.The governance issue is generally a moot point since no permanent population lives there. Cooper Island and ten other land parcels in this atoll are owned by The Nature Conservancy, which manages them as a nature reserve. The southwesternmost islets, including Home, are owned by descendants of former Palmyra owner Henry Ernest Cooper and others. The rest of Palmyra is federal land and waters under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Since Palmyra has no state or local government, it is administered directly from Honolulu by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, except for some submerged tracts administered by the Office of Insular Affairs, both in the U.S. Department of the Interior. Palmyra is counted as one of the U.S. minor outlying islands for all other purposes. They are outside the customs territory of the United States and have no customs duties.
Palmyra land was registered in Hawaii Land Court in 1912. In 1959, the rest of the federal Territory of Hawaii, excluding Palmyra, became the state of Hawaii. Hawaii Land Court became a state court and lost jurisdiction over Palmyra land. Instead, Palmyra land documents are filed or recorded in federal court in Honolulu.
Economy
The only current economic activity on Palmyra is paid ecotourism visits by TNC donors. Most roads and causeways were built during World War II. Most of these are now unserviceable and overgrown, and most causeways and filled areas between islets have washed-away gaps. A unpaved airstrip on Cooper Island was built for the Palmyra Island Naval Air Station before and during World War II.Airport
Palmyra Airport is an unattended airport on Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. It is a private-use facility, originally built during World War II and now owned by The Nature Conservancy. It has one runway measuring. When built, the airport was called Palmyra Atoll Airfield, and later Palmyra Island Naval Air Station as it was a former Naval airfield on the Palmyra Atoll in the Line Islands of the Central Pacific Area. The name for the airport comes from Henry Ernest Cooper Sr., who owned Palmyra from 1911 to 1922.Preliminary surveys were made by the U.S. Navy in 1938 for an airfield at this location. The first Navy group to begin construction sailed from Honolulu on November 14, 1939. The runway was made from crushed coral and expanded during World War II. During World War II, the U.S. Naval Construction Battalion dredged a channel so that ships could enter the protected lagoons and bulldozed coral rubble into a long, unpaved landing strip for refueling transpacific supply planes at the airbase. On January 16, 1942, six Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers from Hawaii were stationed at the airbase, commanded by Lt. Col. Walter C. Sweeney Jr. as part of Hawaiian Air Force's Task Group 8. Marine Corps VMF-211 pilots also used the airfield. During World War II, two other runways were built and used, one on Meng Island and another on Sand Island. These runways are now overgrown with plants and returning to the jungle. The U.S. Air Force maintained the main airfield until 1961.
The airstrip still exists today but can be used only after prior permission has been obtained or in an emergency.
History
Discovery
The first known sighting of Palmyra came in 1798 aboard the American sealing ship Betsy on a voyage to Asia, according to the memoir of Captain Edmund Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut. Fanning wrote that he had awakened three times during the night before, and after the third time took it as a premonition, ordering Betsy to heave to for the rest of the night. The next morning, Betsy resumed sailing, but only about a nautical mile farther on, he believed he sighted the reef later known as Palmyra Island. It might have been wrecked if the ship continued on her course at night. Captain Fanning's claim to have discovered Palmyra itself has been challenged, on the view that he had only reached Kingman Reef away and could not possibly have seen Palmyra from that distance. On page 3, the Baltimore newspaper The Telegraphe and Daily Advertiser of July 29, 1803, appears to quote directly from Fanning's journal: "We supposed that we saw land from the masthead to the southward of the shoal but it was so hazy we were not certain." This would stand in conflict with Fanning's book of 1833, in which he, while referring to Kingman Reef, wrote "I went aloft, and with the aid of the glass could plainly see the land over it, far in the south."On November 7, 1802, the ship Palmyra, under Captain Cornelius Sowle, was shipwrecked on the reef, which took the vessel's name. Lacking a navigable boat passage through the reef from the sea, it had never been inhabited. A lack of archaeological surveys on the atoll leaves the question of habitation before European contact open. As a result, no marae, basalt artifacts or evidence of Polynesian, Micronesian or other pre-European native settlements before 1802 have been reported on Palmyra. At the time of his discovery, Captain Sowle wrote:
There are no inhabitants on the island, nor was any fresh water found; but cocoanuts of a very large size, are in great abundance; and fish of various kinds and in large shoals surround the land.