“A lot of people realized we were basically heading towards a Wild Wild West mentality about using ocean resources.” |
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| Stephanie Moura, Massachusetts Ocean Partnership | |
Offshore wind farms, liquefied natural gas pipelines, fiber-optic cables, desalination plants, aquaculture—the world is moving towards the ocean as a provider of services, and coastal resource managers have had few guidelines for making decisions on suitable ocean uses or considering appropriate siting. Coastal managers in Massachusetts recently released the nation’s first comprehensive ocean management plan that protects critical marine resources while at the same time fostering sustainable uses in state waters.
“The plan is a first significant step in marine spatial planning in the United States, setting Massachusetts on a path toward comprehensive ecosystem-based ocean management,” says Deerin Babb-Brott, assistant secretary for Oceans and Coastal Zone Management in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. “The intent of the ocean plan is to serve as a vital, adaptive, living document that will guide stakeholders and user groups, resource managers, and the public in the protection and balanced use of our marine waters.”
The Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan provides new protections for critical environmental resources in nearly two-thirds of the commonwealth’s coastal waters, while setting aside approved areas and creating standards for the development of renewable energy facilities and other offshore infrastructure.
“One of the really notable ways the plan breaks ground,” says Stephanie Moura, executive director of the private nonprofit Massachusetts Ocean Partnership, “is that it looks at all uses over the entire coastal jurisdiction of Massachusetts’ waters, which is a ribbon of water extending out three miles, as opposed to looking at a subset or region.”
Moura adds, “A lot of folks were engaged in the plan trying to find a rational way to set aside areas of preservation, while looking at the full suite of ocean uses and trying to look at where certain uses were compatible and where they were incompatible.”
“It’s a model for other states,” says Babb-Brott, “in the sense that it follows the principles and practices of marine spatial planning and ecosystem-based management to the extent that we were able given existing information. The particulars of how we arrived at a management regime and the overall structure of the plan are unique to the circumstances of Massachusetts.”
Appropriate Uses
Just as planning and zoning are done for development on land, marine spatial planning is a process to determine appropriate uses of the ocean and its resources—such as fishing, transportation, recreation, wind energy production, oil production, and sand mining—while protecting marine ecosystems.
According to a NOAA website, marine spatial planning has three primary attributes: it seeks to balance multiple objectives, including ecological, social, economic, and governance; it clearly defines and manages ocean areas that are large enough to incorporate relevant ecosystem processes; and it addresses the interrelationships and interdependence of the natural processes, human uses, and appropriate authorities.
At its simplest, marine spatial planning is a method for coordinating a growing number of ocean and coastal activities.
Essential Driver
Offshore renewable energy was “the essential driver” for marine spatial planning efforts in Massachusetts, says Moura, whose nonprofit organization was created to advance ecosystem-based management of the commonwealth’s coastal ocean waters.
“There was a proposal for a large wind farm offshore,” Moura explains. “The idea was that if there were going to be large facilities sited offshore, they ought to be done in the context of some rational, comprehensive plan to ensure that we’re putting them in the right places.”
She adds, “A lot of people realized we were basically heading towards a Wild Wild West mentality about using ocean resources, with the person who stakes their flag in the ground first being able to do what they want.”
Laying the Groundwork
To address these concerns, the Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force was appointed in June 2003 and charged with investigating ocean use trends and existing governance mechanisms, and drafting legislation.
“That two-year effort laid the groundwork for the ocean management plan,” says Babb-Brott. “It brought stakeholders together, some of whom had significantly different perspectives on the best approach. They put together draft legislation in 2005 that started wending its tortuous way to the legislature.”
In May 2008, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed the Oceans Act, which required the Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to develop a comprehensive ocean management plan, with a draft plan completed by June 30, 2009, and a final plan promulgated by December 31, 2009. The governor also appointed a 17-member Ocean Advisory Commission to serve as a sounding board during the plan’s development.
“We had about 18 months to have a final plan. Six months before that, we had to have a draft plan out for public review, so we had just over a year to put this thing together,” recalls Babb-Brott.
Two Tracks
To meet this intense deadline, Babb-Brott established “two tracks” for collecting information and designing an approach.
“The first thing we did was go out into the state and hold a series of public listening sessions,” he says. Eighteen public meetings were held throughout the state “asking anybody and everybody what their thoughts were on the act itself, what a plan ought to do, and what the issues were.”
Six working groups made up of various stakeholders were also established to look closely at fisheries, habitat, sediment management, marine infrastructure, regulatory, and historical, cultural, and archaeological issues.
“The purpose of the work groups,” explains Babb-Brott, “was to collect all the available information and start working with the materials and synthesizing the available data… They gave us the raw materials to work with.”
The agency’s Ocean Science Advisory Council also provided information and feedback throughout the process.
Advancing the Ball
To create a frame for the plan, coastal staff members and the working groups turned to the requirements in the Oceans Act itself.
“The act at its core has 15 requirements,” Babb-Brott says. “Those things include protecting sensitive and unique environmental resources, effective stewardship, addressing sea level rise and climate change, fostering sustainable use, enhancing public access and economic quality of life—it was a pretty intimidating laundry list. We had to boil all those down.”
In the end, they focused on identifying and protecting critical marine resources and identifying appropriate locations and performance standards for facilities and uses. They also worked to create an ongoing formal science and management review framework so the planning process would continue, even after the deadline was met.
“What we came up with,” Babb-Brott says, “was a workable, meaningful framework. We had a limited amount of time, and we recognized that this would only be a start. Our job was to create a solid structure and foundation for ongoing work that at the same time was real and meaningful and was advancing the ball.”
Soup to Nuts
In June 2009, the draft ocean management plan was published for public review.
“It was a full soup-to-nuts draft plan that both provided ‘spatially explicit’ maps depicting relative compatibility of specific uses and ecological resources, as well as outlined a regulatory and implementation framework,” Moura says.
“In the subsequent five-month period of public review, we received over 300 written comments and hours of testimony in five public hearings and 25 informational meetings,” says Babb-Brott. “After a year and a half of intensive policy development, scientific analysis, mapping, public participation, and writing, revision, and comment incorporation, the final ocean management plan was completed” by the December 31, 2009, deadline.
The Plan
The final plan provides a comprehensive framework for managing, reviewing, and permitting proposed uses of state waters that can be implemented through existing state programs and regulations. It adds new protections for marine life and habitats, identifies areas suitable for renewable energy development, and designates a multi-use area.
“The plan characterizes the environment to the extent the data is able to do so, it characterizes the human uses to the extent we are able to do so, and it provides analysis of the interaction between the two groups. It makes regulations where, more or less, uses are allowed or disallowed based on a comprehensive analysis of uses and resources,” Babb-Brott says. “It balances the impacts of human uses and the protection of significant environmental resources.”
It also outlines a five-year, $2.5 million science plan the state will pursue in collaboration with the Massachusetts Ocean Partnership that will help characterize marine habitats, identify and respond to the cumulative impacts of human uses and climate change, and monitor the ocean system to track the effectiveness of the management measures.
This spring, relevant state agencies will revise their environmental regulations to incorporate the new protections mandated by the plan.
Pragmatic Approach
“What you will find in the plan is a lot of common sense,” says Babb-Brott. “We focused on being pragmatic. We could have developed a Maserati, but none of us here could drive a Maserati. The utility of the end product is all about people’s ability to understand it and work with it constructively.”
He adds, “You can’t avoid addressing these issues because you don’t have the perfect information right now. We grumbled about having an 18-month deadline, but it gave us the ability to charge through this and do it. Yes, it was hard, but we’re proud of the results.”
For more information on the Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan, contact Deerin Babb-Brott at (617) 626-1000 or Deerin.Babb-Brott@state.ma.us. You may also contact Stephanie Moura at (617) 287-7542 or smoura@massoceanpartnership.org.
For More Information
Massachusetts Ocean Management Plan,
Massachusetts Ocean Partnership,
Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force,
www.mass.gov/czm/oceanmanagement/taskforce/index.htm
NOAA’s Marine Spatial Planning resources and information,
