Obituary

Abstract

Alden Partridge Colvocoresses, 88, a decorated Army Colonel and US Geological Survey mapmaker who unsuccessfully challenged the federal government for ownership of a duckhunting island in the Potomac River, died on 27th March 2007 at Inova Fairfax Hospital after a stroke. Dr. Colvocoresses, known by many as Colvo, served in the Army Corps of Engineers from 1941 to 1968. During the Second World War, he received two Silver Stars, one for capturing and destroying a German Mark IV tank in Tunisia and another for escaping from Italian captors in North Africa. He also served in the Korean War and retired after playing a large role in mapping operations during the Vietnam War. His other decorations included the Bronze Star Medal and two Purple Hearts. He spent the rest of his career working for the US Geological Survey’s national mapping division, retiring in 1990. He was a research cartographer on the Landsat satellite programme and received two patents for models of remote sensing systems. He also discovered a reef in the Indian Ocean that was subsequently named after him. Dr Colvocoresses’s interest in duck hunting and bass fishing led him to an unnamed 3Æ7 acre (1Æ5 ha) island in the Potomac just south of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. From his reading of USGS maps, he thought ‘‘Colvo’s Island’’ was outside National Park Service wildlife refuge boundaries. After he was spotted shooting from the island in the mid 1980s, he fought a long battle with the Park Service over ownership. He filed a claim for the island in the Fairfax County assessor’s office and began paying taxes on the land, which was largely overrun with water during heavy rains. But an old USGS map was shown to be wrong in not noting the Park Service’s ownership of the island when it acquired Dyke Marsh, decades earlier. In 1990, a US District judge fined Dr. Colvocoresses $100 for carrying a firearm in national parkland. Colvocoresses was a native of Humboldt, Arizona where he was born on 23rd November 1918. He graduated in mining engineering from the University of Arizona in 1941. During his military career, he received Master’s degrees in geology and civil engineering and a Doctorate in geodetic sciences from Ohio State University. He was a recipient of the Interior Department’s Distinguished Service Award and was a former president of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He was also a former president of Fairfax Bassbusters, a fishing group now called Fairfax Bass. 2007, The Washington Post. Reprinted with permission.