Support the CT Blue Plan!

UPDATE

We are excited to announce that the State House unanimously approved the Long Island Sound Blue Plan on April 26, 2021, and the State Senate followed suit by unanimously approving the Plan on Friday, May 14, 2021. 

The Long Island Sound Blue Plan is now in full effect, helping shape a sustainable future for our beloved watershed.

THANKS to all who joined us in playing a role in the development and passage of the Plan over the last few years, under the leadership of the State's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and The Nature Conservancy! 

HISTORIC ACCOUNT

The Surfrider Foundation was a key stakeholder in the development of the first in the nation Regional Ocean Plan out of the Northeast. 

Our Northeast Regional Ocean Plan set the stage for the advancement of best practices developed and implemented in the Rhode Island Ocean Special Area Management Plan and the Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan to be adjusted and considered for application at a regional scale, and then considered also in the Blue Plan development. Connecticut's Blue Plan is informed by all three of those plans.

We supported the development of the Blue Plan by participating in public meetings and offering comments, working with key allies who were leading this effort on the ground, including the CT State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and The Nature Conservancy, 

The Blue Plan presents a robust inventory of Connecticut’s Long Island Sound and policies oriented to achieve three overarching goals that are aligned with our regional ocean planning goals: healthy Long Island Sound ecosystem, effective decision-making, and compatibility among past, present and future uses.

The purpose of the Blue Plan is to protect traditional uses, minimize conflicts, and maximize compatibility of ocean uses, now and in the future. This includes preserving Long Island Sound's ecosystems and resources as well as facilitating a transparent, science-based decision-making process informed by robust stakeholder engagement.

Data from the Blue Plan’s Resource and Use Inventory has been pivotal in identifying and mapping many of the most important natural resource and human use areas in Connecticut’s salty waters in an effort to help prioritize actions and future coordination to reach the Blue Plan’s goals. These Ecologically Significant Areas (ESAs) and Significant Human Use Areas (SHUAs) form the basis of many of the Blue Plan’s policies.

ESAs are areas that have unique environmental conditions or species concentrations, whereas most SHUAs are areas where a particular type of popular ocean recreation or other human use activity occurs. These are areas identified to be critical for the Sound’s ecological function, the State’s ocean economy, and for the sense of place for residents and visitors. Importantly, prior to policies proposed in the Blue Plan, most of the identified ESAs and SHUAs have to date had no special protections prohibiting other uses from degrading their unique qualities.

Through the Blue Plan development process, it was acknowledged that the current mapping of ESAs and SHUAs is far from comprehensive. Moving forward in advancing the iterative Blue Plan, it will be critical both to identify known data gaps and new methods for understanding where ESAs and SHUAs not yet identified exist and how to map them, as well as to account for the changing sea due to climate change, pollution, changes in stock, use and other variables. The Blue Plan sets a course of action in play to account for this important work and demands upkeep of data, monitoring, and evaluation, and continued coordination among agencies, abutting states, scientists, and potentially affected stakeholders. It’s a smart plan that maximizes agency time and resources while setting a trajectory for the protection and continued health of the ecosystem and its many individual human uses and natural resources.

In a study conducted in 2015 by the Surfrider Foundation and partners under the direction of the former Northeast Regional Planning Body, we found that 90% of Connecticut based respondents indicated that they enjoy Long Island Sound for beachgoing, and 76.3% noted they appreciate sightseeing and scenic enjoyment around the Sound. Twelve SCUBA clubs were in operation in Connecticut at the time, with eight important dive sites reported in the State’s waters. There were 38 sailing clubs and 77 races reported, contributing to the coastal economy. Many nearshore activities were plotted, including standup paddle boarding, kayaking, and swimming.

Accessibility to nearshore ocean recreation activities is vitally important to Connecticut’s ocean economy; these activities are impacted by activities occurring further offshore in the policy area of the Blue Plan, as well as by other concurrent human uses, and by the overall health of the Sound. Similarly, nearshore activity can impact offshore uses and resources. While Blue Plan policies only apply within the Policy area further offshore, these important nearshore areas in the coastal zone were included in the ESAs and SHUAs, thereby allowing for these important areas to be considered in decision-making processes to provide a pathway toward resolving potential conflicts and maximizing potential synergy of total uses in the marine environment.

In advance of the February 10, 2021, public hearing for HJ-53, the resolution to adopt the Blue Plan, we submitted testimony by emailing our support to Co-Chair Cohen, Co-Chair Borer, and Members of the Environment Committee at envtestimony@cga.ct.gov.

On February 26, 2021, the Environment Committee voted the measure out favorably. On March 23, the measure was tabled for the House Calendar, where we're awaiting the resolution to be called for a vote.