COMDTINST 16004.2
3.
DIRECTIVES AFFECTED. Coastal Zone Management, Coordination Procedures,
COMDTINST 16004.1A was canceled.
4.
BACKGROUND. Reference (a) (CZMA) establishes a national policy to: "...preserve,
protect, develop, and where possible, to restore or enhance, the resources of the Nation's
coastal zone...." Few of our Nation's environmental laws have as great a potential
impact on the Coast Guard as the CZMA. The CZMA allows the States, with few
constraints, to define their own coastal zones and to pervasively regulate activities in
those areas and to develop and implement Coastal Zone Management Programs
(CZMPs). Reference (a) also requires Federal actions that have reasonably foreseeable
effects on any land or water use or natural resource of the coastal zone, regardless of
location, to be consistent to the maximum extent practicable with the enforceable policies
of a coastal State's federally approved CZMP. Recognizing Coast Guard's federal
environmental stewardship as stated in reference (d) and consistent with references (e)
and (f), the purpose of this instruction is to provide policy and procedural guidance to
Coast Guard officials of their compliance and federal environmental stewardship
responsibilities under references (a), (b) and (c).
a. The term "coastal state" means a state, commonwealth, or territory of the United
States, in or bordering on the Atlantic, Pacific, or the Arctic Ocean, the Gulf of
Mexico, Long Island Sound or one or more of the Great Lakes.
b. "Coastal waters" means (1) in the Great Lakes area, the waters within the territorial
jurisdiction of the United States consisting of the Great Lakes, their connecting
waters, harbors, roadsteads, and estuary-type areas such as bays, shallows, and
marshes, and (2) in other areas, those waters adjacent to the shorelines, which contain
a measurable quantity or percentage of sea water, including, but not limited to,
sounds, bays, lagoons, bayous, ponds, and estuaries.
c. "Coastal zone" under the CZMA means the coastal waters (including the lands therein
and thereunder) and the adjacent shorelands (including the waters therein and
thereunder), strongly influenced by each other and in proximity to the shorelines of
the several coastal states, and includes islands, transitional and intertidal areas, salt
marshes, wetlands, and beaches. The zone extends, in Great Lakes waters, to the
international boundary between the United States and Canada and, in other areas,
seaward to the outer limit of State title and ownership under the Submerged Lands
Act (43 U.S.C. 1301 et seq), the Act of March 2, 1917 (48 U.S.C. 749), the Covenant
to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with
the United States of America, as approved by the Act of March 24, 1976 (48 U.S.C.
1681 note), or section 1 of the Act of November 20, 1963 (48 U.S.C. 1705), as
applicable. The zone extends inland from the shorelines only to the extent necessary
to control shorelands, the uses of which have a direct and significant impact on the
coastal waters, and to control those geographical areas which are likely to be affected
by or vulnerable to sea level rise. Excluded from the coastal zone are lands the use of
which is by law subject solely to the discretion of or which is held in trust by the
Federal government, its officers or agents. Consistency requirements of the Act apply
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