Effective Stakeholder Engagement for Offshore Wind Energy Development: The State of New York's Fisheries and Environmental Technical Working Groups

Abstract

The offshore wind (OSW) energy industry is rapidly developing in the United States. New federal mandates require at least 30 GW of OSW by 2030. With the largest goal in the eastern United States, the state of New York seeks to advance OSW in a way that is both environmentally and socially responsible as well as cost-effective. To achieve this, New York developed technical working groups (TWGs) in 2017 focused on critical topics relating to OSW energy development, including the Fisheries Technical Working Group and Environment Technical Working Group (F-TWG and E-TWG; collectively, “the TWGs”). The TWGs are composed of OSW developers, fishing industry (F-TWG) or environmental nongovernmental organizations (E-TWG), federal agency representatives, and state representatives from Maine to North Carolina. These groups advise the state of New York on OSW issues by emphasizing the use of science and technical expertise to inform decision making. The effectiveness of TWG collaborations is due to a variety of reasons, including the regional scale of stakeholder involvement, which allows the groups to develop guidance at an appropriate geographic scale relative to OSW and fishing activities and wildlife populations. The regional collaboration and communication fostered by the TWGs are essential for building trust among stakeholder groups and working collectively to minimize fisheries and environmental impacts as the OSW industry progresses. This paper highlights the OSW stakeholder engagement process and approach implemented by New York through the development of TWGs, as a means of identifying needs for environmental and fisheries resources to inform responsible OSW development within New York and regionally across the eastern United States. The lessons learned from the TWG process can be used to inform stakeholder engagement efforts in other locations.