US Minor Outlying Islands - Palmyra Atoll
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The United States Minor Outlying Islands consist of nine United States insular areas in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea: Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Islands, Navassa Island, Palmyra Atoll, and Wake Island. The Caribbean territories of Bajo Nuevo Bank and Serranilla Bank can also be included as per U.S. sources.
Palmyra Atoll is an incorporated atoll administered by the United States federal government. The atoll is 4.6 sq mi (12 km2), and it is located in the Northern Pacific Ocean. 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 mi (14 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 and the two Home Islets 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. Average annual rainfall is approximately 175 in (4,400 mm) per year. Daytime temperatures average 85°F (29°C) year round.
Palmyra is an incorporated territory of the United States (the only such territory since 1959), 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. It remains therefore currently the only unorganized incorporated U.S. territory.
Cooper Island is privately owned by The Nature Conservancy and managed as a nature reserve; the rest of the atoll is government land in the possession of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Since the territory has no local government, it is administered directly from Washington, D.C., by the Office of Insular Affairs, United States Department of the Interior. 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. Various abandoned World War II–era structures are found on the island. Large parts of the atoll are closed to any sort of public access due to the threat of uncleared World War II unexploded ordnance.
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.
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. 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 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 December 2000, most of the atoll was purchased by The Nature Conservancy, for the purposes of coral reef conservation and research. The Cooper family still owns two of the five Home Islands. 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. 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 Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument was established on January 6, 2009 and includes the Palmyra Atoll. The Secretary of the Interior has management responsibility, delegated to the Fish and Wildlife Service.
On January 18, 2001, the Secretary of the Interior signed an order designating Palmyra’s tidal lands, submerged lands, and surrounding waters out to 12 nautical miles from the water’s edge as a National Wildlife Refuge. Subsequently, the Department of the Interior published a regulation providing for the management of the refuge.
In March 2003, The Nature Conservancy conveyed 416 acres of the emergent land of Palmyra to the United States to be included in the refuge. It subsequently added 28 more acres to the conveyance.
As of July 2009, limited visits to the refuge are allowed for certain circumstances, including by private recreational sailboat or motorboat. Such visits must have prior approval, with access to Cooper Island arranged through The Nature Conservancy.
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