Midway airport operation supported only till Nov. 30
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to operate the airfield at Midway Atoll while it waits for Congress to conclude budget discussions on paying for the mid-ocean runway.
Advertiser library photo • June 5, 2002
The airport operation is financed through the end of this month.
Midway Atoll, all 2.5 square miles, once was home to about 1,500 people when it was used as a Navy base. Now, even continued use of the airstrip is in question.
A Senate transportation appropriations bill has authorized $6 million for keeping the runway open next year, but the House of Representatives has not allocated money for it, said Barbara Maxfield, of the agency's Pacific Islands office. The differences will have to be worked out in conference committee, she said.
The Department of Interior's budget for the 2004 fiscal year has been approved by both houses of Congress and has been signed by the president — but doesn't provide the cash to run the airport. That measure says the service may legally run the airport, but that the service doesn't really need an airport to operate the wildlife refuge. It says the agencies that do need it should be paying the Fish and Wildlife Service to keep the airport open.
A number of government agencies and private firms benefit from the presence of an airfield at Midway, which lies more than 1,000 miles northwest of the main Hawaiian Islands. The Coast Guard stops there during its law enforcement and search and rescue missions in the mid-north Pacific. Oceanic fishing vessels have come to rely on the runway for evacuation of injured or sick crew members. Trans-Pacific air carriers that use fuel-efficient twin-engine jets need a mid-ocean field in case they lose an engine.
Thus far, the Fish and Wildlife Service said, none has volunteered money to keep the runway open.
Midway is a nesting site for hundreds of thousands of seabirds, and a place where Hawaiian monk seals and green sea turtles haul out. It also is a national historical site, with a century of history as a communications relay area, an oceanic refueling stop for early long-distance aircraft, and most notably, the site of the battle that turned the tide in the Pacific in World War II.
Discussions about the operation of the airfield don't directly address the issue of public use of the atoll. Bird lovers and military history buffs had a brief period when they could visit the atoll during the late 1990s and early 2000s, but squabbles between the Fish and Wildlife Service and contractor Midway Phoenix Corp. ended that last year.
Service officials say they remain committed to public access, but the status of the airfield could be the thing that determines whether a viable visitor program can function.
Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
