1. Massachusetts Ocean Management:
Implementation Progress and Results
Bruce K. Carlisle
Office of Coastal Zone Management
Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs

2. Outline
• Before / after MA Ocean
Management Plan:
– Siting and management
standards
– Protecting critical marine
resources and uses
– Collaborative government
• Progress on advancing
identified priorities
• EVI: the one that got away

3. W
“ e have also been particularly mindful of current
uses and natural resource qualities of the state’s oceans,
and of our state’s rich cultural, social, and economic
heritage that has been tied so closely to the ocean and
our varied interactions to it. We took as our point of
departure the current state of resources and uses,
growing tensions between existing and proposed uses
and resource needs, and the current set of laws and
regulations affecting them, in order to consider what
legal authorities and action might be needed to assure
that the Bay State's public trust ocean resources are
adequately protected while also fostering sustainable
uses of them. ”
‐ Massachusetts Ocean Management Task Force, 2004

4. Commercial fishing activity

5. Ocean Act of 2008
• Ocean Management Task Force 2003‐2004: set of
findings and recommendations
• Act directs Secretary of EEA to develop integrated
ocean management plan by December 31, 2009
• 15 directives, including:
– Develop siting priorities, locations, and standards for
allowed uses, facilities, activities
– Identify and protect special, sensitive, and unique
estuarine and marine life and habitats
– Foster sustainable uses
– Support infrastructure necessary for economy and
quality of life
• All state approvals must be consistent with Plan

6. Jurisdictional
boundaries
Ocean planning area

7. Ocean Plan
• Draft Plan issued June
2009
• Final Plan promulgated
December 2009
• Volume I
– Management
– Administration
• Volume II
– Baseline Assessment
– Science Framework

8. Marine habitat and
water‐dependent use protections
• Plan identifies and maps:
‐ Important marine and
estuarine life and habitats (aka
Special, Sensitive, and Unique
resource areas)
‐ Areas of high concentrations of
existing water‐dependent uses
• Contains siting and
performance standards to
protect these areas / interests

9. Administration and priorities
• Interagency management coordination / integration
– Planning and coordination for regulatory decision‐making
and science and data priorities
• Protocols for Plan updates and amendments
– Updates to adopt new geospatial data/information on
uses or resources; correct errata, technicalities
– Amendments for changes to specified management area
boundaries, protected uses / resources, standards
• Science Framework
– Blueprint for evolving knowledge and understanding
– Describes important information needs and identifies top
5‐year priorities

10. Special, sensitive, &
unique resources
• Endangered whale core
habitat
• Important fish resource
areas
• Roseate Tern core habitat
• Special concern tern core
habitat
• Hard/complex seafloor
• Eelgrass
• Intertidal flats
• Long‐tailed duck, Leach’s
storm petrel and colonial
important habitat

11. Marine habitat protection
• Specified activities are presumptively excluded
from SSU areas; may be overcome by a clear
demonstration that:
– No less environmentally damaging practicable
alternative exists, or
– All practicable steps taken to avoid damage and
project will cause no significant alteration to SSU
resource and values, and
– Public benefits associated with the proposed project
clearly outweigh the public detriment to the SSU
• Siting review completed by agencies during MEPA
review: coordinated and collaborative

12. Project case study
• Comcast Fiber Optic Cable
Project:
– Purpose is to provide
redundant upland and
submarine cable to Martha’s
Vineyard to ensure critical
telecommunication
100% of time
– Falmouth to Tisbury on
Martha’s Vineyard
– SSU resources:
hard/complex bottom,
eelgrass

13. Project case study
• Pre‐application
coordination :
– Proponent meetings with
agencies
– Ocean plan standards: need
to avoid SSU areas
– Need to conduct survey and
site characterization
• Reconnaissance and route
surveys
– Sonar, video, grabs
– 600’ corridor, transects

14. Project case study
• Meeting standards:
– Route modification
– HDD
– Time of year
• EIR submitted, in review

15. Science framework
• Blueprint for evolving knowledge and
understanding:
• Summarizes major marine ecosystem components
and drivers
• Describes important information needs
• 5‐year top priorities:
 Developing data network for sharing information
about Massachusetts ocean resources and uses
 Refining protected fish resource areas
 Developing new data on recreational use
 Mapping and classifying benthic and pelagic habitats
 Developing performance evaluation framework

16. Data system and network
• Plan development and implementation of priority
information/research generate large quantities of data on
ocean resources, uses, habitats
• Host the data and make readily available not only to
managers but to developers, interested parties, research
community, and the public
• In January, CZM released major upgrade of the
Massachusetts Ocean Resource Information System
(MORIS):
• Increased speed; search function
• More base‐maps, including Google
• Access to certain federal and other
external data directly from the agency of origin

17. Recreational boating data
• During plan development, it was acknowledged
that available data on recreational boating spatial
patterns and economics were limited
• 2010 Survey (May – October):
• SeaPlan, Urban Harbors Institute, CZM, Massachusetts
Marine Trade Association, plus other partners
• Random sample of registered boaters
• Data on spatial patterns, activities and intensity of use,
and economics involved
• 2,100 boaters provided detailed information
• Economic contribution from MA saltwater recreational
boating was $806 million and supported over 4,700 jobs

18. Recreational boating
• Data as depicted
in 2009 plan

19. Recreational boating
• Routes from 2010
survey

20. Recreational boating
• Concentrations of
activity:
Quartile
distribution of
routes from 2010
survey

21. Mapping and classifying habitats
• Data acquisition and
mapping
– Data mining for
seabed sediment data
points
– Two research cruises
on OSV Bold: sediment
grabs and bottom
photos
– Analysis of seafloor
photo archive for
fauna and sediments

22. Mapping and classifying habitats
• Data acquisition and
mapping
– Continued partnership
with USGS to gather
sidescan/ bathymetry
data and create
interpretive products
– Modeling:
temperature, salinity,
currents, bed stress

23. Mapping and classifying habitats
• Classification:
– Classifying the biotic and abiotic into meaningful
units for better understanding and management
– Universal habitat framework (CMECS)

24. Ecological Valuation Index
• Need for systematic methodology to evaluate and
discriminate ecological importance of planning
area
• Development of Ecological Valuation Index
– Compile and analyze spatial data
Special, Sensitive, Unique species: spatial distribution
of critical habitat
– Apply standard set of criteria and scoring:
 Major contribution to fitness of population
 Spatial rarity
 Global and regional importance

25. Ecological Valuation Index
Ecological Valuation Index: Ecological Valuation Index: Ecological Valuation Index:
Quartile distribution Quartile distribution Decile distribution
all scores for species all scores for species all scores for species
occurring in grid cell occurring in grid cell occurring in grid cell
by group by group

26. Ecological Valuation Index
• Benefits of EVI
– Differentiates areas in terms of their ecological value,
using data on marine organisms
– Help identify areas especially suitable for protection
– Important step toward managing based on
ecosystem perspective
• Limitations of EVI
– Data availability and spatial resolution
– Difficulties in applications for abiotic endpoints as
well as space / time
– Coarse tool: evolving understanding of ocean
ecosystem interactions

27. Thank you
mass.gov/eea/oceanplan
Bruce Carlisle
617.626.1205
Bruce.Carlisle@state.ma.us