Tourism firm may stay on Midway

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

Midway Phoenix, the firm that has been providing an ecotourism experience on remote Midway Atoll, hopes to be able to arrange to stay, a company officer said yesterday.

A month ago, the company stopped weekly chartered Aloha Airlines flights and canceled all visitor reservations, saying it could not work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It announced it planned to give up its contract there.

Since then, however, the firm has been lobbying hard in Washington for a change in the structure of its management agreement at the atoll, 1,200 miles northwest of Honolulu.

Half of Midway Phoenix's employees — most of them foreign nationals — left the atoll Saturday and were to have made air connections to their home countries. About 60 workers remain, running the airport, power plant, water system and other facilities.

"It looks like we're going to come to some kind of agreement ... I think we can work it out, but as to what our role is (to be) out there, I don't know," said Bob Tracey, executive vice president of Midway Phoenix.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which said it still has not received formal notification from the company that it is walking away from its contract, says it knows nothing of an impending agreement.

"We've had numerous discussions between managers and now between attorneys," said Barbara Maxfield of the service's Honolulu office.

The federal agency, in anticipation of Midway Phoenix's departure, recently chartered a plane that took staff to the island, along with a small-capacity generator and "a lot of food," she said.

The service has four full-time employees and a number of volunteers on Midway.

Agency officials say they are frustrated because, until they get formal notification about whether Midway Phoenix is staying or going, no planning is possible.

"We hope we can end this" stalemate, she said.

Midway Phoenix has run facilities on Midway's Sand Island for five years, since the Fish and Wildlife Service took title to the atoll from the Navy.

The company's supporters say the Fish and Wildlife Service has interfered with its ability to run an airport and visitor activities there, while backers of the wildlife service argue that the company has not respected the agency's mission to preserve wildlife.

Caught in between are military history buffs, who fear the disruption will result in loss of access to Midway.