National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration May 25, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

NOAA and the Department of the Interior (DOI) invited federal, state, commonwealth, and territorial MPA programs with potentially eligible existing MPAs to nominate their sites to the national system of MPAs (national system). This was the second round of nominations, following the nomination of 225 sites in the initial round of nominations, completed in April 2009. For the second round, a total of 32 nominations were received. Following a 45-day public review period, 114 public comments were received by the National Marine Protected Areas Center (MPA Center) and forwarded to the relevant managing agencies. After review of the public comments, managing agencies were asked to make a final determination of sites to nominate to the national system. All the nominations were confirmed by the managing agencies. Finding them to be eligible for the national system, the MPA Center has accepted the nominations for 29 sites and placed them on the List of National System MPAs.