The decades-long effort to turn a tiny island at the eastern approach to Long Island Sound into a nature sanctuary has gotten a big boost from the recently enacted federal budget, which orders the government to begin discussion on turning it into a permanent natural preserve.

After years of fighting to block development of Plum Island, conservationists on both sides of the Sound have succeeded in including language in the 2023 omnibus spending bill that supports “the permanent conservation of Plum Island for the protection in perpetuity of its natural and cultural resources” and calls on a variety of federal agencies to brief Congress on how to do it.

“This is going to get everybody to focus and answer questions,” said Louise Harrison, Long Island natural areas manager for the group Save the Sound. ”It may not seem like a lot, but it is. This proves that senators from Connecticut and New York find Plum Island preservation to be very important.”

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who supported the Plum Island language in the spending legislation, predicted it will “turbo charge” the effort to preserve the island as “an environmental treasure.”

The 840-acre Island is an oddity in the densely populated Northeast because of its location in a turbulent marine environment and the absence of development.

It sits in a stretch of water between Orient Point on Long Island and Fisher’s Island, through which billions of gallons of seawater are flushed in and out of Long Island Sound by violent tidal currents moving at as much as five knots. The tidal races around the island are some of the best in New England for recreational fishing.

Two tiny, nearby islands, Great and Little Gull, are important seabird habitats, hosting the largest concentrations of Common and Roseate Terns, respectively, in the world and the western hemisphere. Hundreds of harbor and gray seals winter on Plum and the two smaller islands.

For decades, Plum Island has been mostly off limits to the public and entirely off limits to development as the site of the nation’s, if not the world’s leading research laboratory dedicated to control and eradication of disease in livestock and other animals on which global food supplies depend.

It was controlled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture until Sept. 11, 2001, when the Department of Homeland Security took control in recognition of security risks associated with the research.

In 2008, the federal government decided to move the lab to Manhattan, Kan. The new lab is being completed. Until then, the Plum Island lab will remain open.

Beginning in 2008 there was discussion in Washington and New York of selling the island, within sight of the Hamptons, for development. But in 2020, under pressure from conversationalists, Congress took it off the auction block.

“So Plum Island is no longer for sale,’ Harrison said. “It is just that it is not yet in a conservation program — there is nothing that assures it’s future conservation.”

Blumenthal said that language he helped draft for the omnibus is close to a guarantee that Plum Island is preserved — without deciding explicitly how.

“This legislation expresses, formally, Congress’ intention that Plum Island be designated a natural habitat and a resource for people who want to enjoy a pristine island in a very densely populated area,” Blumenthal said.

Aside from the lab complex, the island has remained largely wild and undeveloped. Gray stone Plum Island Lighthouse was built in 1869. An old gun battery, Fort Terry, was built in 1897, along with Forts Michie and Wright on Great Gull and Fishers Island as part of the coastal defense for New York City during the Spanish American War.

Under the language in the Omnibus bill, the federal Department of the Interior, the Department of Homeland Security, and the General Services Administration are directed to provide Congress with options for converting the island to a preserve.

The agencies are to “provide a briefing to (Congress) regarding the closure and disposal process for the island’s permanent conservation, the possibility of interim ecological management, and options for permanent ownership of Plum Island, including management of and partnerships with State, Federal, and Tribal entities, potential costs for managing the island and the status and schedule of cleanup and monitoring.”

Blumenthal said Congress will have to appropriate money at a later date to pay for conversation to a preserve.

In the meantime, preservationist in and out of Congress are pressing the White House to declare the island a national monument, which would ensure it is protected from development.

Harrison said more than 1,600 people have written the White House in support of the designation, including the U.S. Senators from Connecticut and New York, as well as dozens of public office holders on Long Island.