Agency out of money to run Midway facilities

By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Science Writer

The contract to maintain the airport and other facilities on Midway Atoll expires Sept. 30 and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has no money to extend it.

Service spokeswoman Barbara Maxfield said the agency hopes to find out by the end of this week whether it will receive additional money.

If not, options are limited, and could include closing the old military airfield to commercial operations and shutting down many of the facilities that are being kept open in hopes of reopening the island to visits by ecotourists and military history buffs.

Midway Atoll is in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, about 1,300 miles from Honolulu. Its three coral islands cover 1,549 acres, and the atoll has 300,000 acres of coral reefs.

It is the site of a former Navy base and gave its name to a battle that in June 1942 was the turning point of World War II in the Pacific. During the 1990s, the Navy turned it over to the Fish and Wildlife Service, which runs it as the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.

The Fish and Wildlife Service initially contracted with Midway Phoenix Corp. to run facilities and tourism on the atoll. The firm opened the island to diving tours, fishing charters, wildlife tours and people interested in the atoll's military history, but the company withdrew early in 2002 after complaining that Fish and Wildlife Service restrictions on its activities made it impossible to conduct a successful business.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has since hired contractors to keep the facilities operating. In April, the agency entered a five-month contract with an Alaskan firm, Chugach McKinley Inc., to run the airport, fuel farm, water, power, communications and sewage facilities.

The contract was to be extendable on a month-to-month basis, but the Fish and Wildlife Service has not received budget allocations to do so.

The agency has reviewed several options, Maxfield said. The most austere would involve keeping a handful of wildlife officials on the island, shutting down most of the old Navy infrastructure and closing the airport to commercial operations.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.