Monitor National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council to meet in Wanchese

NOAA’s Monitor National Marine Sanctuary will hold a public meeting of the sanctuary advisory council on Thursday, June 5, from 10 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at the University of North Carolina Coastal Studies Institute, 850 N.C. 345, Room 262, in Wanchese.

The meeting will include a presentation from the expansion working group about its recommendations for potential expansion alternatives for the sanctuary. The presentation will start at 10 a.m. with a public comment period from 1-1:30 p.m.

The expansion working group is comprised of individuals representing various stakeholder groups including local business leaders, historians, tourism representatives, and diving and fishing interests. Their objective is to develop potential options for boundary expansion of the sanctuary which they will present to the full council for further discussion and analysis.

Public attendance is encouraged. For those who are not able to attend in person, a conference call-in number can be found on the MNMS homepage, http://monitor.noaa.gov.

The meeting agenda can be downloaded from the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary website, http://monitor.noaa.gov. For further information, please contact Shannon Ricles by e-mail at shannon.ricles@noaa.gov or by phone at 757-591-7328.

The Monitor sanctuary advisory council was established in 2005 to assure continuous public participation in the management of the sanctuary. The volunteer council represents a variety of local user groups, the general public, and state and federal governmental jurisdictions. The council’s role is to provide advice to the sanctuary superintendent on cultural resource protection, critical issues involving sanctuary use or resources, sanctuary research objectives, and education and outreach programs.

Managed by NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, Monitor National Marine Sanctuary was designated in 1975 to protect the wreck of the famed Civil War ironclad USS Monitor, which sank during a storm 16 miles off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in 1862.