Cape & Islands Offshore Wind Stakeholder Process

MTC PUBLIC INFORMATION MEETING ON CAPE WIND DEIS

MTC convened a public meeting, on Saturday, January 8, 2005 at the Cape Cod Community College, Tilden Arts Center. The goal of the meeting was to facilitate informed public dialogue on the Cape Wind project as well as provide information and help citizens understand what is in the Cape Wind Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and clarify the next steps in the regulatory process. Greg Watson, MTC Vice President for Sustainable Development moderated the meeting.

The meeting began with overviews of their respective state regulatory processes from Jim Hunt, Director of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office and Deerin Babb-Brott, Assistant Director for Policy and Planning with the Massachusetts Coastal Zone Management Office. Karen Adams, Project Manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District followed with a summary of the Cape Wind DEIS.

The nearly 4,000-page document released by the Army Corps last month is a combined DEIS, Draft Environmental Impact Review (DEIR) and Determination of Regional Impact (DRI) that represents the results of a coordinated federal, state and regional review of the Cape Wind project. Interested parties may view the document at: http://www.nae.usace.army.mil/projects/ma/ccwf/deis.htm.

Due to the fact the DEIS was still under review, representatives from the state agencies did not comment on the content but addressed clarifying questions focused on the permitting process.

Presentations from the meeting can be found below.

 

Presentations by representative of: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New England District [download.ppt] [download.pdf] Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office [download.ppt] [download.pdf] Massachusetts Technology Collaborative [download.ppt] [download.pdf]

A great deal of excitement and controversy has arisen over a proposal to develop the nation’s first offshore wind farm on Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. The proposal by Cape Wind to construct 130 wind turbines at that location is both complex and unprecedented (please see MTC’s Offshore Wind Stakeholder Process Progress Report for more details on the proposal). The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MTC) convened a six-month stakeholder group process that examined the issues related to this unprecedented proposed project in considerable detail.

Based on numerous interviews with key stakeholders, The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative determined there was a need for contextual and project specific information to be presented in a neutral setting that would promote exchange among stakeholders with varying viewpoints. MTC was encouraged to play the role of honest broker in order to facilitate the debate and actively produce/identify the data and materials necessary for informed decision-making on this important project. In this capacity, MTC created an issue-oriented process to crystallize and explore areas of concern.

More than 40 key individuals representing the interests of the Cape & Islands as well as non-governmental organizations, state and federal agencies, and elected officials participated in this dialogue, which was designed to identify and begin to address some of the outstanding issues surrounding the Cape Wind project and offshore wind development in general. Our goal was not to achieve consensus, but rather to discover and communicate objective information relevant to the proposed project that would help decision makers and average citizens participate in the permitting process in the most informed and constructive manner possible.

For a look at the lessons learned and highlights, click here.

This online document is a record of stakeholder meetings. The materials are ordered and arranged here just as they were presented to the gathered stakeholders. Clicking on a date in the navigation bar above will take you to that meeting's agenda. From there you will be able to read the meeting summary and view all of the presentations that were delivered and all of the background materials that were distributed at that meeting by simply clicking on their titles with your mouse.

Raab Associates, Ltd. served as the facilitators of the stakeholder process. Raab Associates is a leader in designing and facilitating stakeholder processes on energy, environmental, and regulatory issues. In addition to Dr. Jonathan Raab and Colin Rule, Greg Sobel from Environmental Mediation Services and Suzanne Orenstein served on the facilitation team. Each of the facilitators has more than a decade of experience working in energy and environmental matters in New England.