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4 U. Haw. L. Rev. 139 (1982)
State-Federal Jurisdictional Conflict over the Internal Waters and Submerged Lands of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands

handle is hein.journals/uhawlr4 and id is 143 raw text is: STATE-FEDERAL JURISDICTIONAL CONFLICT OVER THE INTERNAL WATERS AND SUBMERGED LANDS OF THE NORTHWESTERN HAWAIIAN ISLANDS Walk softly. Walk softly, stranger. The land on which you stand is Holy ground... a place of unspoiled beauty, colored by the hand of God. And you who stand upon this land will someday too remember sun-washed sands and quiet days, and moments crystallized in time. Walk softly, stranger, for you stand on Holy ground. -A testimonial to the beauty of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands left by a Coast Guardsman on East Island, French Frigate Shoals. The internal waters and submerged lands of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, a chain of small, low, rocky islets and coral atolls extending more than 1,000 miles in a northwesterly direction from the island of Niihau of the main Hawaiian Islands,1 are a potential source of ' The Hawaiian chain of 132 islands, reefs and shoals can be roughly separated into three geologic sections: 1) The eight main islands and the small islands off their shores; 2) the rocky islets in the center; and 3) the low islands of sand and coral at the northwest end. The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands comprise those in the latter two groups, and include numerous guyots, seamounts, shoals, banks and reefs as structural parts of the archipelago. Specifically, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, also known as the Leeward Islands, from east to west include Nihoa, Necker Island, French Frigate Shoals with La Perouse Pinnacle, Gardner Pinnacles, Maro Reef, Laysan Island, Lisianski Island, Pearl and Hermes Reef, the Midway Islands and Kure Atoll. The State of Hawaii formally consists of all the islands in the archipelago with the exception of the Midway Islands, see HAwAII CONST. art. XV, § 1, which were annexed by the United States in 1867, see A. Taylor, Islands of the Hawaiian Domain (Jan. 1931)(unpublished compilation of historical and government documents relating to the Hawaiian domain in State Archives, Dep't of Accounting and General Services, State of Hawaii); Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244, 304 (1901)(White, J., concurring), and which were set aside by Executive Order in 1903 for naval purposes and are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Dep't of Defense. Exec. Order No. 199A (1903). Geologically, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands differ significantly from the eight main islands, which are characterized by high mountains, relatively large land masses and a wide variety of plants and animals. Gardner Pinnacles, La Perouse Pinnacle, Nihoa and Necker Island are predominantly barren rock. The first two are tiny rock islands which jut dramatically from the ocean to heights of 190 and 122 feet above sea level, respectively. They are devoid of vegetation and have a snow-capped appearance because of a covering of guano left by large seabird nesting colonies. Nihoa, the highest of the refuge islands, rises

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