Homesteading at Sea

Under the Homestead Act of 1862, squatters took possession of millions of free acres of land in the West, but now there is not much worthwhile public land available. A few years ago, a Louisiana contractor named Louis Ray tried to establish himself as a homesteader on one of the last frontiers. Ray made a claim to several acres of coral reef that lay barely submerged five miles off the Florida coast.

Acting for a group of investors--and without Government permission--Ray started building a small island on the reefs off Elliot Key. He brought out equipment to dig fill out of the sea and, as a homestead, set up a prefabricated hut on his man-made island. When the U.S. contested his legal claim, Ray then argued that the island was outside Government jurisdiction. The reefs, he pointed out, were beyond the three-mile limit of U.S. territorial waters. Ray claimed that international law allows anyone who discovers an oceanic island and colonizes it to proclaim it a sovereign country. Dubbing his new nation the "Grand Capri Republic," he made plans to "occupy and defend the area against all comers."

Isle of Gold. Ray was not alone in the unusual claim. A competing company, Atlantis Development Corp., had started dredging and filling operations on the same off-Florida reefs for a $250 million "Atlantis Isle of Gold." The rival investors planned to build government offices, a radio-TV station, a national mint and maybe even a gambling casino.

After a full year of deliberation, a federal judge in Miami has just decreed that neither group of investors has any right to the property. Ruling in favor of the Government, Judge Charles Fulton declared that the disputed territory is not a real island but sea bed. Under an international convention, the U.S. has all rights to exploit the resources of the Continental Shelf. Moreover, federal law empowers the Army to veto potential obstacles to coastal navigation--such as Ray's artificial island. Judge Fulton also speculated that if the U.S. does not control offshore reefs, an alien missile base might conceivably be built on them.

Easy Terms. The Ray case illustrates the fact that a great many legal issues must be resolved before underwater territory can be developed. Last week a special Government commission, headed by former M.I.T. President Julius Stratton, deplored the present haphazard approach to exploiting the oceans. One proposal of Stratton's group attempts to revive the spirit of homesteading. To encourage aquaculture, recreation projects and other uses of the sea, the commission recommended the leasing of submerged lands on easy terms to small investors. It proposes to call the arrangement "seasteading."

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