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Plan would turn
Navy’s isolated Kingman
atoll into refuge

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By Harold Morse
Star-Bulletin

A proposal to make uninhabited Kingman Reef, 900 miles south of Hawaii, a National Wildlife Refuge is unlikely to generate anywhere near the controversy of President Clinton's plan to create the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve.

Kingman Reef is closed to the public. No vessel, except those authorized by the secretary of the Navy, may navigate within three miles of this smallest of the northern Line Islands.

A barren atoll with a deep lagoon, it was discovered in 1798 by an American sea captain, Edmund Fanning, and named after another seafarer who visited in 1853, Capt. W.E. Kingman of Boston.

Kingman's reefs and waters, about six degrees north of the equator, have been reserved for the past 59 years as a Naval Defensive Sea Area. The Navy is considering turning it over to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The isolated and unspoiled aquatic setting is viewed as one of the most primeval coral reef atoll ecosystems in the Pacific. Biologists speak of its crystal clear oceanic waters and vibrant coral reefs that support a spectacular diversity of corals and other marine invertebrates, algae, fishes, marine mammals, sea turtles and migratory seabirds.

Hawaiian longline fishing boats sometimes fish for tuna in surrounding waters, but there is no lobster fishing or bottomfishing there -- activities that caused disagreement over the proposed Northwestern reserve, said Paul Dalzell, a biologist with the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council.

"It is an absolutely pristine reef down at Kingman," said Barbara Maxfield, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman. "We would like to see it protected."

Three coral rubble spits provide resting and foraging sites for migratory birds and basking areas for green sea turtles. Submerged and partially exposed coral reefs surround a central lagoon that ranges from 50 to 250 feet deep.

Formally annexed by the United States in 1922, it became a U.S. Naval Reservation in 1934. Pan American World Airways used it in 1937-38 as a station for seaplanes flying between Hawaii and New Zealand.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking public comments on the wildlife refuge proposal. An environmental assessment and conceptual management plan outlining the proposal was released Monday. Public use is not proposed, although limited access might be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Copies of the environmental assessment are available from the Pacific Islands Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 300 Ala Moana, Room 3-122, Honolulu, or by calling 541-2749. Comments must be received by Jan. 11.