robert e. johnson underwater parks - george wright societyrobert e. johnson leland f. thormahlen...

10 The George Wright FORUM

Robert E. JohnsonLeland F. Thormahlen

Underwater Parks:Three Case Studies, and a Primer on Marine

Boundary Issues

nlike boundaries on land, most marine boundaries are notmarked with monuments or fences. But like a monument orfence, marine boundaries do require maintenance! Poorly main-tained boundaries can impair enforcement of environmental,fishing, and other regulations along that boundary. Further, it

must be recognized that no agency places a marine boundary that doesn’t af-fect many other agencies. This paper presents a brief primer on marineboundaries, followed by three case studies.

In the United States, most marineboundaries are projected from abaseline, which consists of discretepoints selected along the shoreline.Figure 1 illustrates our first problem:Where is the shoreline? U.S. Geo-logical Survey (USGS) topographicmaps typically display either themean sea level or the mean high-wa-ter line, while National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration (NOAA) nautical charts typically showthe mean lowest low-water line.(Always check your map to seewhich datum was used). Variousstates use different water levels tomark the division between privatelands and state-controlled territory.Note that federal offshore boundaries

are measured from the mean lowestlow-water line.

Federal offshore limits andboundaries include (refer to Figure2):• State Seaward Boundary. The

Submerged Lands Act of 1953(43 U.S. Code 1301) grants mostcoastal states jurisdiction out tothree nautical miles.

• Revenue Sharing Line. Thisline, also referred to the “limit of8g,” extends 3 nautical miles be-yond the state seaward boundary.Revenues generated from re-sources such as oil and gas withinthis area are shared between thefederal government and thecoastal state. Note that these two

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• lines are unique to the UnitedStates. In most countries, all o-ffshore territory is controlled bythe federal government.

• Territorial Sea. This line waspreviously at 3 nautical miles, butwas moved to 12 nautical miles byPresidential Proclamation 5928 in1988, in accordance with theUnited Nations Convention onthe Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).The U.S. claims sovereigntywithin this line from the air spacedown through the water columnand into the subsoil.

• Contiguous Zone. Established byPresidential Proclamation 7219 in1999, this 24-nautical mile buffergrants the U.S. the “control nec-

essary to prevent infringement ofits customs, fiscal, immigration orsanitary laws, and regulationswithin its territory or territorialsea.”

• Exclusive Economic Zone(EEZ). Created by PresidentialProclamation 5030 in 1983, theEEZ claims for the U.S. exclusiverights to economic resources suchas oil and gas out to 200 nauticalmiles.

• Article 76 Claims. Article 76 ofthe most recent UNCLOS allowscountries to claim resources out toa maximum 350 nautical miles,depending upon the configurationof the continental shelf.


Note that all these boundaries aremeasured from the baseline points,which are established along the meanlower low-water (MLLW) line, whichincludes rocks and islands.Remember too that, with erosion andaccretion, the coastline can move.When that happens, the baseline andassociated boundaries will all movewith it. Finally, remember that allthese boundaries are in nauticalmiles. A nautical miles equals oneminute of latitude at the equator, or6,076.103 feet, which is not the sameas the statute mile commonly used onland—5,280 feet.

Other offshore boundariesinclude national parks, marinesanctuaries, lease blocks, etc.

As it neared its end, the ClintonAdministration was looking for waysto provide greater protection to thenation’s coral reefs. Enlarging theboundaries of the existing parksystem in the U.S. Virgin Islands(i.e., Virgin Islands National Parkand Buck Island Reef NationalMonument) appeared to be one wayto accomplish this.


Obviously, the first step for anyboundary development is to establishthe baseline along the coast. UN-CLOS Article 5 states that “the nor-mal baseline for measuring thebreadth of the territorial sea is thelow water line along the coast asmarked on large-scale charts officiallyrecognized by the coastal State.” Forthe U.S., these would be the NOAAnautical charts; a detail from one isshown in Figure 3. Selecting thebaseline simply requires that theseaward-most points along the coast,including rocks and islands, be iden-tified, and coordinates obtained forthem (usually through digitizing). Aproblem arises with “low-water fea-tures,” such as rocks, which are indi-cated on the charts with an asterisk.In the example shown in Figure 3,one rock (marked by the number 2 inparentheses) is indicated as being 2feet above datum (MLLW). It can beincluded in the baseline. Anotherrock (marked by the number 1, over-

lined, in parentheses) is indicated asbeing 1 foot below datum. It doesnot qualify as a baseline point. Butwhat about the other rocks that areundesignated? These need to befield-checked.

Once the baseline was estab-lished, the various boundaries couldbe calculated. As shown in Figure 4,which depicts the expansion of Vir-gin Islands National Park with anewly designated Coral Reef Na-tional Monument, those boundariesinclude: the Territorial SubmergedLands Act (TSLA) boundary at threenautical miles, the territorial seaboundary at 12 nautical miles, theequidistant line separating PuertoRico and the Virgin Islands, and theinternational boundary separatingthe U.S. and British Virgin Islands.Coordinates for the internationalboundary had already been pub-lished by the U.S. Department ofState in the Federal Register.


While the Submerged Lands Actof 1953 granted the three-nautical-mile area to the states, it was thelater, Territorial Submerged LandsAct (signed on October 5, 1974),

that transferred control to the territo-ries. But a careful reading of that actreveals that “all submerged landsadjacent to property owned by theUnited States above the line of mean


high tide” were excepted from thetransfer. This would indicate thatthere may be some areas within thethree-nautical-mile line that were re-tained under U.S. jurisdiction andnot relinquished to the territories.But to our knowledge, in over 25years since the enactment of theTSLA, no one had ever mapped outthese areas.

Mapping them first required acareful search of the land records tosee which parcels were owned by theU.S. government as of the date of theenactment of the TSLA. Once thosewere identified, and precise coordi-nates determined, equidistant linescould be calculated to separate fed-eral areas from those under territorialjurisdiction. Figure 5 shows an ex-ample from Buck Island Reef Na-tional Monument.

Having established federal owner-ship of these areas made it possibleto then convert them to NationalMonument Status, which PresidentClinton did on January 17, 2001,with Executive Order 7392 and Ex-ecutive Order 7399. These executiveorders are still under review by theGovernment Accounting Office;however, in this case it appears thatcareful attention to boundary issuesmay prevail in bringing about an ex-panded park boundary—and greaterprotection to the delicate corals.

As in the Virgin Islands national

park units, Glacier Bay National Parkhas both an onshore and offshorecomponent. The latter is now beingcontested by the state of Alaska in theU.S. Supreme Court. In this case,Alaska asserts that it “took title to alllands underlying marine waterswithin the boundaries of Glacier BayNational monument at statehood,pursuant to the equal footing doc-trine and the Submerged Lands Act”(U.S. Department of Justice 1999).But even if the National Park Service(NPS) is able to keep the offshoreproperty after this case is settled,questions remain with the boundary.That boundary, as set forth by Ex-ecutive Order 2330 (April 18, 1939,53 Stat. 2534), goes (in part) from“Cross Sound to the Pacific Ocean;thence northwesterly following thegeneral contour of the coast at a dis-tance of three nautical miles there-from to a point due west of themouth of Seaotter Creek....”

This description raises a numberof questions. What is meant by theterm “the general contour of thecoast”? Is it a high-water line? A low-water line? Does it include rocks andislands? The NPS map GLBA-90,004 shows the agency’s originalinterpretation of this line. What fur-ther complicates the issue is a Fed-eral Register notice published byNPS on September 30, 1992. Thenotice conflicts with Executive Order2330 and the map GLBA-90,004.The Federal Register notice statedthat the line runs “due west, 3 miles


to a point on the line demarking theTerritorial Sea of the UnitedStates....” If one uses the TerritorialSea line, then one has to use rocks

and islands to determine the bound-ary. Figure 6 depicts both the parkboundary (taken from map GLBA-90,004) as the innermost line and the


Submerged Lands Act three nautical-mile line (as calculated by the Miner-als Management Service) as the out-ermost line. It is clear that rocks andislands were not originally used byNPS in determining the park’sboundary. Also at issue here is thedepiction of a median line through anumber of straits within CrossSound. To our knowledge, the ParkService has never issued official coor-dinates describing this boundary.

In order to give greater protectionto the marine resources of the FloridaKeys, especially those that are not

already protected by the existingpatchwork of state and federal parksin the area, NOAA has establishedthe Florida Keys National Marinesanctuary. This action will requireother agencies, such as the MineralsManagement Service, to withdrawthe affected area from considerationfor oil and gas development. Unfor-tunately, NOAA has been unable tocomplete a set of coordinates for thesanctuary. They have a gap wherethe sanctuary closes against the ex-isting boundary for Everglades Na-tional Park. This is because NOAAhas been unable to get precise coor-dinates for the Everglades boundaryfrom NPS. Until such coordinates


are provided, NOAA will be unableto finish its work on the sanctuary,and the Minerals Management Serv-ice will be unable to complete theirwithdrawals for the area within theircadastre. All of this helps to illustratethe point that no one places a bound-ary out there that doesn’t affect every-one else.

Clearly, it is not easy for GIS us-ers to convert legal descriptions ofboundaries into the precise coordi-nates needed to display them in GISsystems, especially when those legaldescriptions are vague or inconsis-tent. Ambiguities in boundary loca-tions could impede enforcement ofthose boundaries. Finally, ambigu-ous boundaries controlled by oneentity can also negatively affect otheragencies in performing their duties.

To deal with numerous issuessuch as these, the Marine BoundaryWorking Group was formed in 2001under the Federal Geographic DataCommittee. It includes representa-tives from nearly every federal agency(including NPS) that either creates or

uses offshore boundaries. The pur-pose is as follows:

Precise, unambiguous offshoreboundaries can be an asset inprotecting the valuable resources thathave been placed under the care ofthe National Park Service. Failing toproperly locate and maintainboundaries can negatively affect NPSenforcement, and also impedes thework of other federal agencies. TheMarine Boundary Working Group isa valuable resource for resolvingthese problems.

NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. 2001. Overview of Marine BoundaryWorking Group. Web site: http://www.csc.noaa.gov/mbwg/htm/overview.htm.

U.S. Department of Justice. 1999. State of Alaska v. United States of America. Web site:http://www.usdoj/osg/briefs/1999/1original/0128.resptomotforleave.html.

Robert E. Johnson, Minerals Management Service, Mapping & BoundaryBranch, P.O. Box 25165, Denver Federal Center, Denver, Colorado80225; [email protected]

Leland F. Thormahlen, Minerals Management Service, Mapping andBoundary Branch, Box 25165, MS-4421, Denver Federal Center,Denver, Colorado 80225; [email protected]


Robert E. Johnson, Minerals Management Service, Mapping & BoundaryBranch, P.O. Box 25165, Denver Federal Center, Denver, Colorado80225; [email protected]

Leland F. Thormahlen, Minerals Management Service, Mapping andBoundary Branch, Box 25165, MS-4421, Denver Federal Center,Denver, Colorado 80225; [email protected]

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