North Carolina Construction News staff writer
North Carolina has joined other Atlantic Coast states involved in a project to support fisheries mitigation in the development of offshore wind along the East Coast.
The Special Initiative on Offshore Wind will support fisheries mitigation in the development of offshore wind along the East Coast.
North Carolina is working with Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.
Currently, states are focused on establishing a framework to compensate commercial and for-hire fishermen in the event of economic impact related to offshore wind development. The goal is to develop a regional approach for administration of any financial compensation paid by developers.
Economic impacts from coastal fishing in North Carolina top $4.5 billion annually.
Together, states plan to develop consistent, fair and transparent compensatory mitigation procedures and through the non-profit Initiative, establish a regional fund administrator for fisheries compensatory mitigation.
Earlier this year, the states collected input and released a final scoping document April 13.