What are the Coastal Program's Goals?
The Coastal Program is a unique federal-state partnership that provides a basis for protecting, restoring, and responsibly developing the nation's important and diverse coastal communities and resources. Unlike many single purpose programs, the Coastal Program focuses its work on the complexity of resource management problems of the coast. It takes a comprehensive approach to problem solving, balancing the often competing and conflicting demands of coastal resource use, economic development, and conservation. The Maryland Coastal Program, like the national Program, focuses its program goals around 3 central themes:
Maryland's coasts offer links to our past and our future. The Chesapeake Bay tells stories of steamboats, pirates and oyster wars, and physically connects us to a world of seaborne commerce. The rivers and creeks offer food, recreation and contemplation. The Atlantic Ocean offers weekends in Ocean City, marlin, and sand. Maryland's waters have spawned cities and industries, as well as herring and crabs. They have seen 15 million bushels of oysters taken in one season and the most magnificent shad run in the country. The coastal areas that lured and sustained early settlers continue to draw us today, but they have not remained unchanged.
The environmental stress suffered by the Chesapeake Bay and its feeder streams is a well-known story. Submerged grasses along the shoreline die off and nursery space for young fish and crabs disappears. An excess of nutrients leads to an oxygen-starved environment incapable of supporting life. Parasites called Dermo and MSX devastate oyster bars. Shifting beaches along the Atlantic become a recurring news event and annual nuisance to bathers and businessmen. The waters change, for better or worse, because of the demands placed upon them, and these demands are many, powerful, and in competition with each other. Protecting wetlands, building in high hazard areas, siting industrial facilities, locating marinas and homes, providing public access to the water, and managing fisheries are just a few of the activities demanding difficult decisions in the coastal zone.
The Maryland Coastal Program is designed to achieve a balance between development and protection in that most unique and complicated place where land and water and people interact. In Maryland, this includes the Atlantic shore, the coastal bays, and over 4,000 miles of beaches, wetlands, cliffs, and other shorelines along the Chesapeake and its tributaries, as well as the open wates of the Bay and countless smaller rivers, creeks, bays, and coves. It also includes the towns, cities and counties which contain and help govern the coastline. The coastal zone encompasses 66% of the state's land area, an area of enormous economic and ecological value.
