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Chequamegon Bay Could Earn Federal Marine Sanctuary Designation

NOAA Program Recognizes Sites Of National Importance

By
Aaron Carlson (CC-BY-SA)

Chequamegon Bay community members are nominating the area to become a Lake Superior National Marine Sanctuary. It’s part of a federal agency’s effort to mark more sites as nationally significant.

Seven communities around the Great Lakes are nominating marine areas for designation, according to Ellen Brody, a Great Lakes regional coordinator for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.

Brody said marine sanctuaries are special places within the oceans and Great Lakes.

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“They contain resources of national significance, and the resources can be natural resources or they can be cultural resources like shipwrecks,” she explained.

Bayfield’s Erica Peterson is an organizer for the Lake Superior nomination.

“We just felt it was important to establish it as a national treasure,” she said.

Sanctuaries are designated for protection, research or education.

President Barack Obama recently announced an 875-mile stretch of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin as one of two new marine areas being considered by NOAA.