Lake Ontario has received a new designation and with it added protections and emphasis on its historic and cultural resources. The Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary was announced June 5 during the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Capitol Hill Ocean Week. The protected area, which encompasses 1,722 square miles of eastern Lake Ontario, will border Wayne, Cayuga, Oswego and Jefferson counties.
The sanctuary encompasses 41 known shipwrecks and one aircraft, though historical records indicate an additional 19 shipwrecks, three aircraft and several underwater archaeological sites could be found there, too. It will be co-managed by NOAA and New York state. What is a marine sanctuary? The National Marine Sanctuaries Act was passed into law in 1972, with the intention of protecting areas of national significance for conservation, recreational, ecological, historical, scientific, cultural, archaeological, education or aesthetic qualities.
The credit for the sanctuary designation goes to the “intrepid and forward-thinking” area residents who realized this part of the lake needed protection, said Joel Johnson, president and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. Cayuga, Jefferson, Oswego and Wayne counties and the city of Oswego submitted the nomination in January 2017. “Becoming a national sanctuary is part of a strategy, if you will, to protect those incredible underwater relics and also to be able to bring the story to the surface so that it could become .
