Abstract
The Pacific Region Marine Renewables Environmental Regulatory Workshop was held in conjunction with the 11th Annual Ocean Renewable Energy Conference in Portland, Oregon, on September 21, 2016 in response to frustrations and concerns expressed by members of the marine renewable energy (MRE) industry about permitting processes for MRE development being long, drawn out, challenging, and expensive, even for very small devices and pilot-scale deployments.
The workshop participants included federal and state regulators, MHK developers, and researchers. Two documents - Annex IV 2016 State of the Science Report and A Review of the Environmental Impacts for Marine Hydrokinetic Projects to Inform Regulatory Permitting: Summary Findings from the 2015 Workshop on Marine Hydrokinetic Technologies, Washington D.C. - were presented to the participants. Estimates of the perceived risks to the marine environment (“dashboards”) for six key interactions were also presented and discussed.