The Long Island Sound Study (LISS) works with federal, state, and local partners to restore and protect Long Island Sound. In 1994, the program’s goals were identified in LISS’s Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (the CCMP).
- Protect and improve the water quality of Long Island Sound and its coves and embayments to ensure that a healthy and diverse living resource community is maintained.
- Ensure that health risks associated with human consumption of shellfish and finfish are minimized.
- Ensure that opportunities for water-dependent recreational activities are maximized without a conflict with ecosystem management.
- Ensure that social and economic benefits associated with the use of the Sound are realized to the fullest extent possible, consistent with social and economic costs.
- Preserve and enhance the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the Sound and the interdependence of its ecosystems.
- Establish a water quality policy that supports both the health and habitats of the living resources of the Sound and the active and passive recreational and commercial activities of people.
Achieving these goals will require difficult social, institutional, and political choices. Thus, it is necessary to move beyond technology-based control (e.g. permit actions) and manage the Sound and its watershed as an ecosystem through the active participation of government and non-government agencies, and local and regional citizens (CCMP, 1994, page 6).