Above, an excerpt from a 6-foot interpretive panel developed for NYSG’s Great Shipwrecks of New York traveling exhibit. Credit: NYSG
Contact:
John Cannaday, NYSG Great Lakes Recreation and Tourism Specialist, E: jdc378@cornell.edu, P: (315) 849-4436
National Marine Sanctuary status will increase tourism and spur economic growth in New York State’s eastern Lake Ontario region.
Oswego, NY, May 27, 2025 - New York Sea Grant (NYSG) successfully worked with multiple community-based partners to promote maritime heritage and safe and environmentally-friendly recreation across NY’s Great Lakes region. The region’s impressive collection of historic shipwrecks draws divers and history buffs making a substantial economic impact on local coastal communities. The designation of a Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary (LONMS) was sought by four Lake Ontario counties to help promote recreational opportunities and provide protection for significant underwater sites along the lake’s eastern shore. NYSG collaborates with partner groups to educate the public about the cultural and historic resources along the length of NY’s Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River shoreline.
NYSG has participated on the LONMS Advisory Council since its inception and helped facilitate the four-county LONMS Nominating Committee’s development of an application to the NMS designating authority, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Officially designated in 2024, the LONMS now has federal protection for this unique maritime historic, tourism, economic, and cultural resource area that spans a 1,722 square mile region from the western Wayne County line east to where Lake Ontario meets the St. Lawrence River. The Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary is the newest (and 3rd) National Marine Sanctuary on the Great Lakes (America’s 16th). The designation will increase tourism and spur economic growth in New York’s Great Lakes region.
Project Partners/Funders:
• Oswego County
• Cayuga County
• Jefferson County
• Wayne County
• City of Oswego
• New York State Governor’s Office
• NYS Department of State
• NYS Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
• Port of Oswego Authority
• Pre-designation LONMS Advisory Council
• U.S. Coast Guard
More Info: New York Sea Grant
Established in 1966, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Sea Grant College Program promotes the informed stewardship of coastal resources in 34 joint federal/state university-based programs in every U.S. coastal state (marine and Great Lakes) and Puerto Rico. The Sea Grant model has also inspired similar projects in the Pacific region, Korea and Indonesia.
Since 1971, New York Sea Grant (NYSG) has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.
NYSG historically leverages on average a 3 to 6-fold return on each invested federal dollar, annually. We benefit from this, as these resources are invested in Sea Grant staff and their work in communities right here in New York.
Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.
New York Sea Grant, one of the largest of the state Sea Grant programs, is a cooperative program of the State University of New York (SUNY) and Cornell University. The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.
For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org, follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and YouTube). NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which it publishes 2-3 times a year.