Long Island Sound, one of the nation’s greatest estuaries, is also of one of its most stressed, notwithstanding some improvement in the last two decades. In the mid-1980s, the federal government and the States of New York and Connecticut commissioned the Long Island Sound Study, which resulted in a clean-up plan released in 1994. This plan, known as the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP), identified seven issues that merit special attention:

1. Low dissolved oxygen (a result of toxic levels of nitrogen)
2. Toxic contamination
3. Pathogen contamination
4. Floatable debris
5. Habitat degradation and loss
6. Land use and development
7. Public involvement and education