The public meetings in New England surrounding the Northeast Regional Ocean Plan thus far have enjoyed robust attendance, but questions remain.

On May 25, the Northeast Regional Planning Body released the nation’s first draft regional ocean plan, kicking off a 60-day comment period for New England, with nine public meetings scheduled from Connecticut to Maine throughout the month of June.

Stakeholders and community members have been actively encouraged to attend, and with seven of the nine meetings already completed, attendance has been robust and diverse.

Meetings have been held in Rockland and Ellsworth, Maine, Old Lyme Connecticut, Gloucester, New Bedford, and Boston, Massachusetts, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. And while attendance has ranged from strong to nearly standing room only capacity, the diversity of stakeholders has been especially encouraging, with representation from the commercial and recreational fishing sectors, working waterfronts, energy, recreation, conservation, national defense, marine trades, research and tourism, and more.

The agenda and topics covered at each meeting have remained consistent:

• Presentation and Overview of Elements: Participants were given the opportunity to observe posters detailing various aspects of the plan, including the drafting process’s timeline for stakeholder engagement, the Data Portal, a breakdown of draft plan’s five chapters, and a visual representation of federal agency best practices. In addition to this, Betsy Nicholson, the federal co-lead from NOAA, walked through the draft plan’s contents, noting how agencies planned to use the Data Portal with the intent to facilitate better decision-making.
• Q&A: A Q&A followed the presentation, during which participants were encouraged to ask questions about the draft plan’s contents, data, usability, and day-to-day implications for stakeholders.
• Opportunity to submit formal comment: After the Q&A, participants could submit formal, “on the record” comments to the organizers, giving them the opportunity to reflect upon the plan’s strengths and areas in need of further clarification and/or improvement. Attendees who did not choose to submit formal comment were encouraged to do so via the online public comment portal.

Throughout the public meetings so far, questions asked were as diverse as the participants attending each meeting. Fishermen, conservationists, marine trades advocates, journalists, members of the military, port masters, and islanders (to name only a few) carved time out of their busy schedules and day jobs to learn, engage, and understand the local implications and benefits the draft Northeast Ocean Plan will have for those who depend on the Northern Atlantic for their livelihoods and well-being.

A goal of the New England Ocean Action Network has been to ensure stakeholder voices are at the table in the ocean planning process. While Chapter 4 of the Northeast Ocean Plan references the Regional Planning Body’s overall commitment to continue to engage with stakeholders once the plan becomes approved and put into use, many questions have been asked regarding how stakeholders will continue to have a seat at the table throughout the implementation stage.

We hope that as the public meetings continue and as comments come in, the RPB commits to clarifying how this will work in practice by supplying concrete examples of what stakeholder engagement might look like in a realistic setting under the new plan.

The last public meetings will be held Wednesday, July 29 in Narragansett, RI, and Thursday, June 30, in Portland, Maine. Find details here. The public comment period will remain open through July 25; You can submit comments online here.

Northeast Ocean Plan Public Meeting Regional Ocean Planning