(At Left) The Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival welcomed people to explore fun activities around the Oswego Harbor. Pictured are kids playing leapfrog with the ‘Happy Pirates’ troupe. (At Right) The local advisory committee for the proposed Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary joined representatives from NOAA to talk to people about the proposal during the Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival. Pictured from left are Ellen Brody, NOAA; Kristen Eichhorn, SUNY Oswego; Oswego County Administrator Philip Church; Dr. Robert Morgan; David Granoff; Pam Orlando, NOAA; John Morgan; H. Lee White Maritime Museum Executive Director Mercedes Niess; and Bill Christ.

— Filed by OswegoCounty.com

Oswego, NY, May 27, 2022 - The Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival welcomed people to the scenic shores of the Great Lake to learn all about what the waterfront has to offer. Attendees enjoyed a wide range of family activities, demonstrations and displays, exhibits, vendors, live music and food.

Representatives were on hand from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as the local advisory committee to provide information about the proposed Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary.

In addition, New York Sea Grant (NYSG), U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, Oswego City Fire Department, and Boating Industries Association of Upstate New York provided boating and safety information.

Lee White Maritime Museum hosted the event which also featured underwater sonar and ROV specialists Captain Tim Caza and Dennis Gerber, the ‘Happy Pirates’ performing troupe and ‘Pancakes with Pirates’ thanks to Girl Scout troops #10566 and #10567.

This event was sponsored in part by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, New York Sea Grant, the Port of Oswego Authority and the City of Oswego.

For more information about the H. Lee White Maritime Museum, visit www.hlwmm.org or call 315-342-0480. For details about the proposed Lake Ontario National Marine Sanctuary, go to sanctuaries.noaa.gov/lake-ontario.

For more great events and visitor information, contact the Oswego County Tourism Office at 315-349-8322 or go to www.visitoswegocounty.com.

More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.