Who's the Longest of Them All?

by John Burbidge

 IN the never-ending debate over whether size
matters enter two unlikely contestants from
opposite sides of the country: Long Island,
118 miles long, and Whidbey Island, in
Washington, a mere 45 miles long. At stake
are bragging rights to being the longest
island in the contiguous United States.

Some Long Islanders, of course, may not even
know Whidbey Island exists. Whidbey Islanders,
on the other hand, are agonizingly aware of Long
Island and are jumping up and down to get its
attention. They want Long Islanders to know that
Whidbey Island is, in fact, the longest island off
either coast.

You could say they are obsessed with making this claim. Local tourist-dependent businesses
advertise it on their Web sites and feature it in brochures. Moon Handbooks' Washington volume
mentions it. Gift shops in historic, Hamptonish seaside towns like Langley and Coupeville sell T-
shirts declaring, "Whidbey Island: The Longest Island in the Continental United States," and shop
owners gleefully tell tales of visiting New Yorkers taking surprised offense, especially after they
read the explanation on a card attached to the shirt.

Bottom line, according to the card: Long Island isn't an island. The Supreme Court said so.
Therefore Whidbey, which used to be the second-longest island in the lower 48 states, is now first.

Perhaps the 58,000 residents of Whidbey, a picturesque getaway in northern Puget Sound, didn't
think Long Island was really using the longest-island distinction anyway, since New York City was
right next door, providing an unending stream of visitors.

Long Islanders might be perplexed to learn that they don't live on an island. The controversy is
actually rooted in a 1985 Supreme Court decision on states' rights to seabed and subsoil off their
coasts (United States vs. Maine et al., also known as the Rhode Island and New York Boundary
Case). For these purposes, the court decided to treat Long Island as a peninsula rather than an
island, because it simplified the issue from a legal standpoint.

But is it really the Supreme Court's job to deal in geographical nuances? Do these esteemed
arbiters of justice take it upon themselves to determine the geological difference between a hill
and a mountain, a creek and a river, a pond and a lake?

Not according to Michael Baur, a philosophy professor at Fordham University who also holds a law
degree from Harvard. Dr. Baur came across the longest-island claim, read the fine print in the New
York and Rhode Island Boundary Case and concluded that the longest-island claim was a little
short on truth.

“THE law often makes use of legal definitions that depart from our ordinary understanding of
words,” Dr. Baur said. “For example, courts regard corporations as ‘persons’ for legal reasons
having to do with the assignment of ownership and liability, but it's obvious no corporation is a
'person' in our ordinary sense of the term.”

”But the court wasn't saying Long Island isn't an island in a geographical sense,” he continued. “In
fact, all parties involved in the case agreed Long Island is a geographical island. It was only for the
purposes of the case that the island was declared an extension of New York's coastline.
Geographically, Long Island is an island, and to claim anything else is a misrepresentation of the
facts.”

Dr. Patrick Kennelly, an assistant professor of geography, and Dr. Lillian Hess Tanguay, an
associate professor of geology, both at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, concur
with Dr. Baur's conclusion. Long Island is, in fact, a real island by any definition. And as such, its
118-mile length is more than twice that of Whidbey.

In August 2002, Dr. Baur wrote a letter to Avalon Travel Publishing, the publishers of the Moon
Handbook, suggesting that they correct this “gross inaccuracy” and, in future editions, refer to
Whidbey Island as "the longest juridically defined island in the lower 48 states for the purpose of
applying Article 7 of the Convention on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone, but the
second-longest in straightforward, geographic terms.” Behind Long Island, of course.

The publishers responded with a note saying that they would keep Dr. Baur's letter on file but that
they had just printed a new edition of the Washington handbook, so nothing could be done for
several years.

Meanwhile, back on Whidbey Island, Dr. Baur's analysis meets with the puzzled utterances of
those having their party balloon popped.

“Well, the claim is just made in fun,” said Linda Bruner, the office manager at the Oak Harbor
Chamber of Commerce and Visitors' Center. Oak Harbor is the largest city on Whidbey Island, with
a population of about 20,000. It is home to Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, where squadrons of
radar-jamming EA-6B Prowler warplanes (made, coincidentally, by Grumman on Long Island) train
before heading off to places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

In fun or not, Ms. Bruner has backup for her claim. She produces an old excerpt from the Island
County Historical Society Museum Newsletter headlined "Largest or Second-Largest?" and explains
that while Long Island is 118 miles long and Whidbey is only 45 miles long, it is nonetheless a
“legal” fact that Whidbey is the longest island in the lower 48 states. The Supreme Court said so.

”Talk to the folks at the museum,” she said. “They gave these to me to hand
out.”

The folks at the Island County Historical Society Museum were a bit confounded when presented
with Dr. Baur’s letter refuting their interpretation of the facts. Seems this longest-island claim has
been around Whidbey so long that making it has become second nature.

The museum's director, Cynthia Johnson, sent a note saying that the person who put together the
newsletter years ago is "no longer with us" and that the museum itself had no official comment on
the longest-island claim.

”However,” she said, “we invite any and all visitors to our long and beautiful island, and encourage
them to make their own judgment.”

“And please,” she added, “wish Dr. Baur good luck in his quest for the truth.”