By PETER BORRELLI
An important lesson that lawmakers and the general public are beginning to draw from the current debate over wind energy development in Nantucket Sound is that the Bay State does not have an ocean policy that adequately defines and protects both ocean resources and the public interest. Those who think an environmental impact analysis of the proposed development is a proxy for planning are deluding themselves. It just does not work that way.

There is no such thing as planning backward, as we have discovered on land. And there is no such thing as planning piecemeal. However, we do not have to look back very far to discover a number of individuals and agencies have given considerable, even profound, thought to the importance of Nantucket Sound and the need and mechanisms for protecting it.

The first notable effort came in 1971 when Gov. Francis Sargent signed into law a consolidated bill establishing the Cape Cod Bay Ocean Sanctuary and the Cape and Islands Ocean Sanctuary. The author of the legislation was then-freshman Sen. John Aylmer, R-Barnstable. Aylmer recently remarked that the legislative intent of the Cape and Islands Ocean Sanctuary was essentially pragmatic. Aylmer and his colleagues set out to protect the "economic asset" that the natural environment represented.

The state Legislature also had no qualms at the time about asserting state jurisdiction over the central waters of Nantucket Sound, which the Supreme Court some years later declared to be federal waters. But for Aylmer and subsequent political leaders and scientists, that Nantucket Sound could be somehow gerrymandered has never made any sense.

A decade later, on Dec. 22, 1980, the state secretary of environmental affairs and attorney general further pressed the matter of jurisdiction and protection by nominating the central portion of Nantucket Sound outside Massachusetts coastal waters as a national marine sanctuary. Once again the state's view was that the state and federal waters of Nantucket Sound "...constitute one integrated ecosystem whose living resources use the entire Nantucket Sound area without knowledge or consideration of political boundaries."

What is remarkable about this particular statement, attributed to Attorney General Francis Beloti, is that in making this irrefutable ecological point he conceded jurisdiction of Nantucket Sound's central waters to the federal government.

The 1980 nomination is equally noteworthy for its unqualified statement regarding goals and objectives: "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts finds that Nantucket Sound contains distinctive ecological, recreational, historic and aesthetic resources that form the basis of the predominant economic pursuits of the area: fishing and tourism."

Could anything be clearer? Perhaps we are confused today, but throughout the '60s, '70s, and '80s there was little doubt what the policy objectives for Nantucket Sound ought to be.

In 1983 an independent scientific panel commissioned by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration further verified that assessment when it recommended Nantucket Sound as a candidate for sanctuary status. More recently, Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., announced his support for national marine sanctuary designation as the best means of balancing use and protection.

The common thread throughout all these proposals is the creation of a collaborative planning process, not to be confused with a regulatory regime. (A regional plan for the Sound might lead to regulations, but only after all major stakeholders have come to agreement.)

As a member of the federal advisory council for the Gerry E. Studds-Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, I can attest to this being a lengthy, arduous and sometimes frustrating process. But I do not see how it could be any other way for areas like Stellwagen Bank or Nantucket Sound, where the need for protection is so obvious and the uses so complex.

We are not the only coastal state to be confronted with difficult choices, but planning should not be one of them. I believe this is our last opportunity to guarantee that Nantucket Sound continues to be a special place. This will require a commitment to an open, collaborative planning process involving interests at the local, state, and federal level. We should seize the day, not begrudgingly, but with pride for having a national marine sanctuary on the near horizon.

Peter Borrelli is executive director of the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown and a member of the federal advisory council to the Gerry E. Studds-Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

(Published: February 25, 2004)