President Obama wants to protect from development water bodies in Lake Michigan and Maryland, creating the first new marine sanctuaries since 2000.
The governors of Wisconsin and Maryland requested the sanctuary protections last year in an effort to preserve areas that host unique ecosystems and large concentrations of shipwrecks.
{mosads}Obama announced the proposals Monday in a prepared video for an international conference on oceans in Chile.
“These actions will protect waters of historic and national importance,” Obama said in the video. “And in the coming months, I will look for opportunities to protect even more of our waters.”
The sanctuary protections, which Obama can impose with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, permanently prevents fishing, development, oil drilling and various other potential harms.
The Lake Michigan site, requested for designation by Gov. Scott Walker (R), covers about 875 square miles off Wisconsin’s shore from Port Washington to Two Rivers.
It has 39 known shipwrecks, and 15 of them are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Maryland site covers a small area of Mallows Bay in the Potomac River, about 30 miles south of Washington, D.C., that contains the largest number of shipwrecks of any spot in the Western Hemisphere, with nearly 200 wrecks from hundreds of years.
It also hosts numerous rare, threatened and endangered species, the White House said. Then-Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) petitioned for the sanctuary protection in September 2014.
NOAA is taking comments from the public on the proposed protections until Jan. 15.
Last year, Obama added more than 400,000 miles to protected waters under the United States’ control, including making the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument the largest marine protected area in the world.