I have been a recreational fisherman for nearly sixty years. Although I have spent most of that time on the waters bordering New York and Connecticut, I have fished on every American coast, including those of Alaska and Hawaii, and in a number of Caribbean nations. Throughout that time, and in all of those places, one thing was clear: fishing suffers when critical habitat is not protected, and when anglers have no place to fish.
Here in New York, the state has been very proactive in enacting its coastal zone management program; early in the process, it reached out to anglers and other stakeholders to determine which areas of the ocean they normally use and which areas are important to them. Over the past ten years or so, New York has vetoed two efforts to cite LNG port facilities in such waters. One, which would have been located at the mouth of Long Island Sound, would have impaired the safety and free passage of fishing vessels; the other, which was just rejected earlier this year, would have been built near some of the only hard-bottom habitat in the ocean off western Long Island.
Having seen how ocean planning works in the real world, I’m a big supporter.