Finalization of the Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary was announced in Washington, DC last week, during Capitol Hill Ocean Week. The Lake Ontario sanctuary is the 16th sanctuary to be designated, and the third on the Great Lakes.
The sanctuary area starts at the west boundary of Wayne County and extends along the lakeshore through Cayuga and Oswego Counties, through Jefferson
County ending at Tibbetts Point in Cape Vincent, and includes 1,722 square miles of Lake Ontario.
The designation process began with a nomination by the four counties and the city of Oswego in 2017.
The Sanctuary celebrates Upstate New York’s unique maritime heritage and provides a national stage for promoting the region’s tourism and recreational opportunities.
The new sanctuary includes 41 known shipwrecks and one known submerged aircraft discovered over decades by recreational scuba divers and shipwreck explorers.
The effective date of the sanctuary will be late July. The sanctuary will be co-managed by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and New York State.
