National Marine Sanctuaries History Timeline

Congress establishes a Marine Sciences Council led by Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is established and placed within the Department of Commerce.

October 23 - Congress passes the Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act which, among other things, establishes the National Marine Sanctuary Program.Title III of the law is later renamed the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (NMSA). >

Congress overrides President Nixon's veto and passes the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, substantially rewriting and strengthening federal water pollution control.

Scientists from Duke University, the State of North Carolina and the Massachusetts Institute Technology (MIT) discover the wreckage of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor off the coast of North Carolina.

USS Monitor is nominated for national marine sanctuary status by Governor James E. Holshouser, Jr. of North Carolina.

January 30 - President Gerald Ford approves the designation of USS Monitor National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of North Carolina. It becomes the nation's first national marine sanctuary.

California nominates and NOAA selects Channel Islands, Point Reyes-Farallon Islands and Monterey Bay for further study as potential national marine sanctuaries.

Office of Ocean Management established in NOAA

President Jimmy Carter requests that NOAA develop a List of Recommended Areas for marine sanctuaries designation. This process results in a pool of 67 potential sites from which future Active Candidates for sanctuary designation are to be chosen.

Flower Garden Banks, 100 miles off the Texas and Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico, and Gray's Reef, Georgia are Active Candidates. St. Thomas, Virgin Islands is studied as an Active Candidate for sanctuary designation. Georges Bank, Massachusetts is considered and denied as an Active Candidate because it is determined that existing management programs are adequately protecting the area's resources.

NOAA removes Georges Bank, Massachusetts from List of Active Candidates.

August 29 - Congress reauthorizes the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (P.L. 96-332). Among other things, the 1980 amendments give Congress authority to review a sanctuary designation before it becomes final.

January 16 - President Jimmy Carter approves the designation of Point-Reyes Farallon Islands, Gray's Reef and Looe Key national marine sanctuaries off the coasts of California, Georgia and Florida, respectively. These designations bring the total number of national marine sanctuaries to six.

Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management is merged with the National Ocean Survey under the umbrella of the National Ocean Service.

Cordell Bank is made an Active Candidate. Monterey Bay is removed as an Active Candidate. Termination of first Monterey Bay, California designation effort.

List of Recommended Areas is eliminated and replaced by site evaluation list of 29 sites.

October 19 - Congress reauthorizes the National Marine Sanctuaries Act (P.L. 98-498). "Historical" and "cultural" qualities are included as those qualities that make an area of the marine environment nationally significant and thus worthy of protection. This enlarges the sanctuaries primary mission to preserve marine resources beyond the ecological, recreational, educational, research or aesthetic values. The amendments change the procedures by which sanctuaries are designated by: removing the explicit requirement for the President's approval; requiring consideration of a site's educational, historical and research values; requiring consultation with a list of entities, including Fishery Management Councils; and requiring the preparation of certain environmental studies.

August - The vessel Wellwood grounds in the Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary.

A major portion of program funds is spent responding to the Wellwood and Puerto Rican ship disasters in 1984.

April 29 - NOAA designates Fagatale Bay National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of American Samoa. The seventh of the national marine sanctuaries, it is the first outside the mainland United States.

The USS Monitor is named a National Historic Landmark. It remains one of the only underwater sites so designated.

The Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia, is selected as the principal museum for curation of USS Monitor artifacts and papers.

November 7 - The National Marine Sanctuaries Act is reauthorized (P.L. 100-627). Changes allow the sanctuaries program to issue special use permits, enter into cooperative agreements and collect and use funds obtained from resource damage claims.

The vessels Elpis and Alex Owen Maitland ground in Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary. Sanctuary biologists learn that only a few of the reef-dwelling animals have survived. M/V Mavro Vetrantic grounds in the Dry Tortugas. All three groundings occur within a 18 day time.

August 9 - Congress prohibits exploring for, developing or producing oil, gas or minerals in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary (P.L. 101-74).

November 16 - Congress designates Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Florida (P.L. 101-605). Key Largo and Looe Key national marine sanctuaries become part of the larger sanctuary.

Thunder Bay, Michigan is made an Active Candidate. Santa Monica, California is removed from sanctuary designation consideration.

January 17 - NOAA designates Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico. It is the nation's tenth sanctuary and the first in the Gulf of Mexico.

November 4 - Congress passes the Oceans Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-587). Among other things, that law: reauthorized the NMSA; designated Stellwagen Bank and Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale national marine sanctuaries; prohibited leasing, exploring for, producing or developing oil and gas in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary; and inserted a new requirement for federal agencies to consult with the program on activities that are likely to injure sanctuary resources.

July 16 - NOAA designates Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Washington. It becomes the nation's twelfth marine sanctuary.

In response to the 1989 vessel groundings in Key Largo National Marine Sanctuary, scientists continue restoration efforts. In the summer of 1995, reef rebuilders are hard at work creating new habitats. Original coral structures are rebuilt and later corals, sponges and sea fans are transplanted. In recognition of this historic restoration, the U.S. Department of Commerce awards the NOAA-led team of scientists its Bronze Medal for the successful completion of this unprecedented effort in reef habitat restoration.

January 27 - NOAA changes the name of Point-Reyes Farallon Islands National Marine Sanctuary to Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

August 26 - Norfolk Canyon, Virginia is removed as an Active Candidate for sanctuary designation.

The International Year of the Ocean is celebrated throughout the United States. President William J. Clinton and Vice President Albert Gore attend the National Oceans Conference in Monterey, California and call attention to the need for ocean protections. Five hundred ocean leaders endorse a comprehensive program for national action for the oceans.

April 14 - 26 - The Sustainable Seas Expeditions begins its first sea exploration in Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in California. This first launch begins the Pacific Ocean explorations that will take expedition pilots to Cordell Bank (April 27 - May 6), Monterey Bay (May 9 - 22) and Channel Islands (May 25 - June 4).

September 25 - NOAA designates Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary and Underwater Preserve in Lake Huron. It is the nation's thirteenth national marine sanctuary and the first in the Great Lakes.

March 8 - NOAA establishes the Tortugas Ecological Reserve as part of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The reserve is, at the time, the largest fully-protected marine reserve in U.S. federal waters.

The steam engine of the Monitor is recovered within Monitor National Marine Sanctuary and transported to The Mariners' Museum.

The Civil War shipwreck USS Monitor's gun turret had a historic recovery, along with the remains of two Monitor crewmen. Their remains are sent to the U.S. Army's Central Identification Lab in Hawaii for identification. The Monitor's turret is currently undergoing long-term preservation at The Mariners' Museum.

The California Fish and Game Commission voted to establish ten marine reserves and two marine conservation areas in the state waters of NOAA's Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary. This action created one of the largest marine reserve networks in U.S. waters.

At Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, scientists observed 140 humpback whales, the most ever seen in the sanctuary, on a research expedition cruise.

Two volunteers from Gulf of the Farallones and Olympic Coast national marine sanctuaries were honored with the first Sanctuary Volunteer of the Year awards. Presented by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, the annual awards recognize the importance of more than 5,000 volunteers who assist sanctuary staff.

The Gulf of Farallones Sanctuary Education Awareness and Long-term Stewardship Program (SEALS) celebrated a significant conservation victory after reversing the steady decline in harbor seal pupping. The sanctuary's seal population stabilized, due in large part to the effort of SEALS volunteers who eliminated disturbances by people in areas where the seals rest with their young.

A 500,000 gallon tank, modeled after Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, was installed at the Tennessee Aquarium. This is part of the sanctuary program's larger effort to work with aquariums across the country to install exhibits about national marine sanctuaries.

Scientists in Channel Islands, Florida Keys and Stellwagen Bank national marine sanctuaries began using acoustic tags to monitor fish (without harming them). The goal is to figure out how fish move relative to their preferred habitats and areas closed to fishing. The tags also tell scientists whether adult fish within marine reserves (fully protected areas) move out and supplement populations in unprotected areas.

Researchers from Stellwagen Bank place recording devices, known as D-Tags, on the backs of several humpback whales. After retrieving the tags, they analyze whale movement that reveals the humpbacks, when feeding, dive to the bottom, turn on their sides and forage along the seafloor, which can increase their susceptibility to entanglement in gillnets and lobster gear.

Scientists announced that they identified six algae species that are new to science and 25 species of crustaceans previously unknown in Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary.

President Bush uses the Antiquities Act to establish the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (originally called the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument), making it the largest single conservation area in the history of the country.

A collaborative effort by Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary staff and partners leads the International Maritime Organization to redirect the Boston shipping lanes to protect endangered whales off the coast of Massachusetts. The shift cuts the risk of vessel collisions with critically endangered right whales by an estimated 58 percent and all other baleen whales by 81 percent.

Scientists exploring areas of Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary discover six species of soft coral and one species of a stony reef-building coral that is common to the Atlantic, but rare in the Pacific. This is the terrestrial equivalent of discovering new areas of rainforests on land.

Sanctuaries gain increased public visibility with the opening of two new visitor centers: the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center in Key West and the USS Monitor Center at The Mariners' Museum in Newport News, Virginia.

Revised management plans are completed for Monterey Bay, Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones national marine sanctuaries. Changes include the expansion of the Monterey Bay sanctuary to include Davidson Seamount, one of the largest underwater mountains in the U.S.

Sanctuary marine archaeologists on an expedition in Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument locate the remains of the historic 19th-century British whaling ship Gledstanes and another unidentified vessel.

January 6 - President George W. Bush designates Rose Atoll in American Samoa as a marine national monument. The Pacific Islands Region and Fagatele Bay National Marine Sanctuary begin to develop management strategies for the new monument.

Continuing the Graveyard of the Atlantic research effort, sanctuary researchers locate and identify the final resting place of the YP-389, a U.S. Navy patrol boat sunk by a German submarine during World War II, approximately 20 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Sanctuary advisory council members across the National Marine Sanctuary System create a national working group and draft an agreement addressing the issue of ocean acidification and the threat it poses to sanctuary resources.

The Office of National Marine Sanctuaries sponsors and supports a range of film festivals and sanctuary-themed films to bring the ocean to a national audience. Nearly 9,000 people attend the BLUE Ocean Film Festival's debut in Monterey, California.

The whaling shipwreck Two Brothers is identified at Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The Two Brothers was a whaler lost in 1823 under the command of Captain George Pollard.

January 31 - The wreck of a mid-twentieth century fishing vessel, the Edna G., representative of a distinctive regional fishing technique, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. The Edna G. shipwreck site rests within Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

Nearly 150 years after 16 USS Monitor sailors died when their vessel sank in a New Year's Eve storm, NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries releases forensic reconstructions of the faces of two crew members.

February - NOAA releases the final management plan and environmental assessment for Monitor National Marine Sanctuary, based on several years of scientific assessment and public involvement. The plan outlines how the sanctuary will operate over the next five to ten years. Specifically, it provides a framework for the sanctuary to refine its education and outreach programs; continue restoration and conservation of USS Monitor artifacts; consider possible expansion of the sanctuary's boundaries; and work with the state of North Carolina to strengthen local economies in coastal communities through maritime heritage tourism.

June 13 - At Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, DC, John Podesta, Counselor to President Barack Obama announces the opening of the new public, community-based sanctuary nomination process. This is the first time in two decades that NOAA has invited communities across the nation to nominate their most treasured places in our marine and Great Lakes waters for consideration as national marine sanctuaries.

June 9 - Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary expands from 1,282 to 3,295 square miles -- changing its name from Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary in the process -- and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary expands from 529 to 1,286 square miles. With this expansion comes the protection of areas of major upwelling that support a vast array of sea life including 25 endangered or threatened species, 36 marine mammal species, over a quarter million breeding seabirds, and one of the most significant great white shark populations on the planet.