Earth and Space News: US unincorporated unorganized territory

Showing posts with label US unincorporated unorganized territory. Show all posts

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Navassa Island Unofficial Flag: Designed for 2001 USS Arizona Tribute

Summary: An unofficial Navassa Island flag was designed for first flying Dec. 7, 2001, at the USS Arizona Memorial for the 60th Pearl Harbor attack anniversary.

Navassa Island unofficial flag, designed by Harry Wheeler, Hawaii, and first hoisted Dec. 7, 2001, at U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, under U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), for 60th anniversary of Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service's Attack on Pearl Harbor, O'ahu; added to Fandom VexiWiki by Dtm500 (dtm500): CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Fandom VexiWiki

From the perspective of the United States, the official flag for Navassa Island is the national flag of the United States, presently comprising 13 horizontal stripes and 50 five-pointed stars. An unofficial flag designed in 2001 graphically depicts only Navassa Island, an insular plateau silhouetted against sea and sky.

The tiny Caribbean island of Navassa lies in the Jamaica Channel between Haiti and Jamaica. Although disputed by nearby Haiti, the United States has claimed possession of Navassa since the 1857 discovery of the island’s phosphate-rich guano deposits by Baltimore sea captain Peter Duncan. Since the opening of the Panama Canal on Aug. 15, 1914, about 1.3 decades after the cessation of guano mining, Navassa has resurged in importance due to the island’s strategic location at the southern approach of the Windward Passage connecting the Caribbean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean.

Navassa’s location in the direct path of maritime traffic between the Panama Canal and the United States’ eastern seaboard necessitated the construction of the United States’ tallest concrete lighthouse, first lit Oct. 17, 1917, to guide ships through the island’s reef-riddled territorial waters. In 1929, the lighthouse became automated. In 1996, rendered redundant by the Global Positioning System (GPS), the lighthouse was deactivated. On Jan. 16, 1997, administration of the 2-square-mile (5.2-square-kilometer) island was transferred from the U.S. Coast Guard to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Throughout World War II (Sept. 1, 1939–Sept. 2, 1945) the U.S. Navy (USN) maintained an observation post on Navassa Island. The military installation was sited inland between the lighthouse in the southwest and the Upper Plateau Forests in the north.

Two natural resources inventories of Navassa, conducted from July 24 to Aug. 5, 1998, and from April 29 to May 12, 1999, by the U.S. Geological Survey for its parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, led to the establishment of the Navassa Island National Wildlife Refuge and transfer of management from the Office of Insular Affairs to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, both occurring Dec. 3, 1999.

In 2001, unofficial flags for Johnston Atoll, Midway Atoll, Navassa Island, Palmyra Atoll, and Wake Island were designed specifically for first flying on Dec. 7, 2001, at the USS Arizona Memorial for the 60th anniversary of the surprise military strike against the U.S. naval base at O’ahu’s Pearl Harbor by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The Navassa Island unofficial flag’s ratio of the height of the hoist, the side closest to the pole, to the length of the fly, the bottom or top from hoist to free end, is 3:5. The design features a blue and white horizontal bicolor, with the white band broken at the interface by green. The unofficial flag dramatically depicts the island as an emerald green silhouette, with an exaggeratedly tall, light grey, green roofed lighthouse, against a royal blue sea and a white sky.

aerial, west-to-east view of Navassa in 1999, during second, US Department of Interior-administered inventory of Navassa's natural resources; explorers, film crew and research vessel (R/V) with Australian adventure group/film production enterprise, The Quest, lent support to the expedition: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via USGS

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

MacDonald, Ian. "Navassa Island (U.S. Minor Outlying Islands)." CRW Flags > Flags of the World (FOTW).
Available @ https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/um-navsa.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Navassa Island Lighthouse: Crumbling Landmark Deactivated Since 1966." Earth and Space News. Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2015.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/10/navassa-island-lighthouse-crumbling.html

Marriner, Derdriu. "Navassa Island: US Fish and Wildlife Service Uninhabited Caribbean Island." Earth and Space News. Saturday, Oct. 10, 2015.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2015/10/navassa-island-us-fish-and-wildlife.html

VexiWiki. "Navassa Island." Fandom > VexiWiki > United States, Haiti, Disputed territories.
Available @ https://flags.fandom.com/wiki/Navassa_Island;
specific image URL @ https://flags.fandom.com/wiki/Navassa_Island?file=Navassa_Island.svg

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Navassa Island Lighthouse: Crumbling Landmark Deactivated Since 1996

Summary: Navassa Island Lighthouse stands as a crumbling landmark, deactivated since 1996, on a U.S. tear-shaped island in the Caribbean Sea's Jamaica Channel.

Navassa Island lighthouse and keeper/assistants' quarters in 1999: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Appropriations Act of 1913, passed in the 63rd Congress on Oct. 22, 1913, as H.R. (House of Representatives) 7898, contained among its provisions for “urgent deficiencies ... and for other purposes” an appropriation of $125,000 (=$3 million-plus in 2015 for 1913) for a light station on Navassa Island (ch. 32, 38 Stat. 208, 224). Final tally of funds expended to June 30, 1918, came in under budget at $116,159.40 ($1.8 million-plus in 2015 for 1918).

Construction began in January 1916, with the lighthouse put into commission Oct. 17, 1917. As a second order Fresnel lens, the original illuminating apparatus had a focal length of 750 millimeters. Sited near the island’s highest point, the lighthouse assured maritime visibility with a focal plane of 395 feet (120 meters). The entire station complex of a lighthouse and quarters for the light keeper and two assistants was completed in November 1917.

A keeper and two assistants were housed in a 58-foot square (5.388-meter square) reinforced-concrete building, now in ruins. The single-story quarters featured a patio in the center. The inward slope of the roof, from the outside walls toward the patio, facilitated collection of rain water for storage in a 22,000 gallon capacity cistern. The keeper’s side comprised five rooms and a storeroom with three pantries, one for each of the staff. On the other side, four rooms apiece were designated for each of the two assistants.

aerial, west-to-east view of ruins of lighthouse keeper and assistant quarters on Navassa Island: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Conversion to an automatic beacon in 1929 marked the end of lighthouse keeper tours of duty on Navassa Island. In 1980 a 190-millimeter, solar-powered optic was installed. The dismantling of the light by the U.S. Coast Guard on Aug. 29, 1996, signaled deactivation of the towering landmark, rendered redundant by the Global Positioning System (GPS).

As the tallest concrete lighthouse ever built by the U.S. Lighthouse Service, Navassa’s lighthouse still rises to a height of 162 feet (49 meters). Stone makes up the lighthouse’s foundation, a block of 40-feet square (3.7-meter square) atop solid rock. The grey white tower is made of concrete, with sectional cast-iron plates bolted to the walls on the third, sixth, service, and watch-room floors. The tower’s cylindrical shaft measures a diameter of 15 feet (4.57 meters). The watch room has an overhanging gallery. A black, helical bar lantern room of cast iron surmounts the tower.

Although still discernible and intact, the lighthouse's architecture is crumbling from abandonment. The lack of upkeep guarantees eventual capitulation into oblivion as the lighthouse joins other overgrown, ruined remnants, such as railroad beds and mining structures, under nature's floral blanket.

The U.S. unincorporated unorganized territory of Navassa Island lies in the Jamaica Channel between the islands of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti) and Jamaica.

The tear-shaped island’s strategic location for shipping became apparent with the opening of the Panama Canal, the waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on Aug. 15, 1914. Located on the southern approach to the Windward Passage, the strait between Cuba and Hispaniola connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Caribbean Sea, the microscopic island stands in the direct path of ships traveling between the Panama Canal and the east coast of the United States.

With a land area of around 2 square miles (5.2 square kilometers) and a ruggedly formidable coastline of almost 5 miles (8 kilometers), Navassa Island is a flat-to-undulating coral and limestone plateau. The island attains its highest elevation of 252.6 feet (77 meters) at Dunning Hill in the southwestern interior.

Dunning Hill’s nearest sea point measures 440 yards (400 meters) from the southwest coast. Dunning Hill is located 655 yards (600 meters) east of Lulu Town, the now uninhabited settlement on Lulu Bay that bustled during the phosphate mining heyday lasting from discovery of phosphate-rich guano in 1857 until cessation in 1901. Dunning Hill peaks about 110 yards (100 meters) south of the site chosen for the lighthouse necessitated by spiking traffic through the Windward Passage.

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Navassa Island lighthouse and keeper/assistants' quarters in 1999: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NavassaLighthouse.jpg

aerial, west-to-east view of ruins of lighthouse keeper and assistant quarters on Navassa Island: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lighthouse_Keeper_Residence_Navassa_Island.jpg?uselang=de

Navassa's southwestern coast: terrain rises as plateau, with crumbling lighthouse and derelict staff quarters sited in southwestern interior: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NavassaCoastAerialUSGS.jpg

For further information:

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Navassa Island: US Fish and Wildlife Uninhabited Caribbean Island

Summary: Navassa Island is an uninhabited Caribbean island administered as an unincorporated unorganized U.S. territory via the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

satellite image of Navassa Island: NASA (Johnson Space Center Photo ID ISS014-E-8889), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Navassa Island is administered through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an unincorporated unorganized territory of the United States.

The tiny, uninhabited island is located in the Jamaica Channel that, along with the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola, connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Caribbean Sea. Navassa’s strategic location lies about 33 miles (54 kilometers) west of Haiti, 83 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of Jamaica, and 99 miles (160 kilometers) south of southeastern Cuba’s Guantánamo Bay (Bahía de Guantánamo).

Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus is credited with the island’s sighting in 1493 during his second voyage, from 1493 to 1496, to the New World’s Northern Hemisphere. While stranded on Jamaica’s north central coast for one year, from June 1503 to June 1504, during his fourth voyage across the North Atlantic Ocean, the determined navigator sent two dugouts with Arawak natives under the command of Diego Méndez de Segura and Bartolomé Flisco across the Jamaica Channel, beyond Navassa, to Hispaniola to secure ships in order to return to Spain.

Navassa is shaped as a flat-topped prominence, with a maximum elevation of 252.6 feet (77 meters) and an area of about 2 square miles (5.2 square kilometers). Apart from a small area of the north coast with steep, rocky, lightly sanded beaches, Navassa’s coast is defined primarily by limestone cliffs. An extensive coral reef prevents access to Navassa except at Lulu Bay on the southwestern coast.

Scatterings of cactus, primarily Mammillaria nivosa (known commonly as woolly nipple cactus), along with trees and undergrowth brush, cover the island’s terrain. Found elsewhere in the Caribbean as well as in Florida, Pseudopheonix sargentii var. navasana (soo-doh-FEH-niks sahr-jent’-ee) apparently survives on Navassa only as a single, living specimen, found during the island’s first natural resources inventory conducted for the U.S. Department of the Interior by the U.S. Geological Survey from July 24 to Aug. 5, 1998. Forests feature only four arboreal species: short-leaf fig (Ficus popuinea var. brevifolia), mastic (Sideroxylon foetidissimum), pigeon plum (Coccoloba diversifolia) and poisonwood (Metopium brownie).

Tiny Navassa is a disputed island, claimed by both Haiti and the United States. Haiti has claimed national sovereignty over Navassa since the island republic’s first constitution on July 8, 1801. The United States has claimed Navassa as a guano-rich, unaffiliated, unoccupied island under the Guano Islands Act of 1856 since the discovery of the island’s phosphate-rich bird droppings, valuable for fertilizer and gunpowder, by Baltimore sea captain Peter Duncan on July 1, 1857.

Two natural resources inventories of Navassa conducted for the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs from July 24 to Aug. 5, 1998, and from April 29 to May 12, 1999, produced preliminary results of over 650 terrestrial species. Realization of the island’s rich biodiversity led to the establishment of the Navassa Island National Wildlife Refuge on Dec. 3, 1999. Under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the refuge encompasses a 12 nautical mile (13+ miles; 22-plus kilometers) radius of marine habitat around the island’s 1,344 acres.

Apart from transient Haitian fisherman who apparently camp on the island while fishing Navassa's waters, Navassa is unoccupied and is not open to the public. Special scientific and enhancement permits for monitors and researchers, especially of elkhorn (Acropora palmata) and staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) corals, may be requested through the Caribbean Islands Refuge Complex headquarters at Boquerón, Puerto Rico.

Permit contact details:
Susan Silander, Project Leader
Caribbean Islands NWR Complex
Navassa National Wildlife Refuge
P.O. Box 510
Boguerón, Puerto Rico 00622

phone: (787) 851-7258
fax: (787) 255-6725
email: Caribbeanisland@fws.gov

Navassa Island's forbidding east coast: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

satellite image of Navassa Island: NASA (Johnson Space Center Photo ID ISS014-E-8889), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Navassa_ISS014.jpg

Navassa Island's forbidding east coast: US Geological Survey, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NavassaEastCoastAerialUSGS.jpg

For further information:

"Navassa Island." U.S. Department of the Interior > Office of Insular Affairs > Islands We Serve.
Available @ https://www.doi.gov/oia/islands/navassa

"Navassa Island: A Photographic Tour (1998-1999)." U.S. Geological Survey > Coastal and Marine Geology Program > St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.
Available @ https://coastal.er.usgs.gov/navassa/