Stellwagen Bank Final EIS and Management Plan 



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Manager to focus on coordination among existing 

 mcinagement authorities and resource protection 

 efforts. 



The start-up costs of this alternative would be 

 greater than those of Alternatives #1 or #2, and 

 may put Sanctuary staff into place prematurely. 

 Over the longer-term, however, these staff and 

 facilities are likely to be necessary to a successful 

 Sanctuary program. 



C. Regulatory Alternatives 



Regulatory alternatives related to individual 

 resources or to types of human activities have been 

 evaluated in terms of three principal criteria found 

 in the language of Title III: 1) whether the activity 

 is generally consistent with the purposes of 

 Sanctuary designation; 2) whether existing 

 authorities regulating that activity provide 

 appropriate and sufficient protection for Sanctuary 

 resources; and 3) whether the additional Sanctuary 

 regulation being proposed will be effective in 

 protecting Sanctuary resources. 



Areas of evaluation included the following 

 human activities: discharges and deposits, including 

 dredged materials, wastewater effluents, fish wastes, 

 trash and other debris; incineration; development of 

 mariculture operations; industrial materials 

 extraction (i.e., sand and gravel mining); oil and gas 

 extraction; historical/cultxiral resoiu'ces exploitation; 

 placement of fixed or tethered platforms; 

 submerged pipeline and cable installation; 

 commercial shipping; hghtering; commercial 

 charterboating (whalewatching and sportfishing 

 vessels); recreational vessel operation; and taking of 

 marine mammals, marine reptiles, and seabirds; and 

 fishing. 



1. Discharge or Deposits of Materials 



Discharge or deposits of materials or 

 substances into the ocean encompass a variety of 

 individual activities. Following is a discussion of 

 regulatory alternatives for discharge and deposit 

 activities in general, followed by discussions of 

 individually-identified discharge or deposit activities. 



a. No Regulation: Under this regulatory 



alternative, protection of S2inctuary resources from 

 the potentially harmful effects of discharges and 

 deposits from land and sea sources would rely on 

 the existing provisions of the Clean Water Act 

 (CWA); Title I of the Marine Protection, Research 

 and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA); Comprehensive 

 Environmental Response, Compensation and 

 Liability Act (CERCLA); and the National Oil Spill 

 Contingency Plan. 



Discharges from ships are regulated in the 

 U.S. tmder the provisions of the Act to Prevent 

 Pollution from Ships of 1980 (APPS), as amended 

 in 1982 and 1987 (33 U.S.C. § 1901 etisg.). APPS 

 is the implementing legislation for the 1973 

 International Convention for the Prevention of 

 Pollution from Ships, as modified by the Protocol of 

 1978 (MARPOL 73/78), as amended. Within 

 MARPOL, there are currently five Aimexes 

 addressing: prevention and control of pollution by 

 oil (Annex I); noxious hquid substances in bulk 

 (Aimex II); packaged or containerized harmful 

 substances (Aimex III); sewage (Aimex IV); and 

 garbage (Aimex V). Annexes I, 11, and IV are 

 presently in force in the United States, and the U.S. 

 Coast Guard has promulgated implementing 

 regulations. 



In addition to Title I of MPRSA, disposal of 

 dredged materials at the Massachusetts Bay 

 Disposal Site (MBDS) would also remain subject 

 to the Federal consistency requirements of 

 § 307 of the Coastal Zone Management Act 

 (CZMA), as asserted by the Commonwealth of 

 Massachusetts. 



b. Regulation of the Activity: The preferred 

 regulatory alternative is to prohibit all discharges or 

 deposits from any location within the boundary of 

 the Sanctuary, of materials or substances of any 

 kind (except for those listed in Appendix A, at § 

 940.5(a)(1)). This prohibition would also be 

 appUcable to the discharge or deposit, from beyond 

 the boundary of the Sanctuary, of materials or 

 substances of any kind, except for the exclusions 

 noted above, that subsequently enter the Sanctuary 

 and injure a Sanctuary resource or quality. This 

 regulation would apply to discharges or deposits of 

 solid wastes as well as effluents. 



