The few wave and tidal (i.e., MHK) projects that have been licensed and permitted in the United States have been challenged by a lack of a clear understanding of potential environmental effects and mutual understanding of the regulatory pathway. Due to the low number of installed and operating projects, regulators across federal, state, and local jurisdictions in many regions are relatively unfamiliar with MHK technologies, their potential environmental effects and available strategies for mitigation and monitoring. Additionally, the developers themselves, who are typically responsible for framing the project for regulators, often lack the information and tools for establishing a productive dialog with regulators. This project compiles existing environmental information from wide ranging data sources which are currently difficult to find across several sources. Further, by engaging with experts, both nationally and internationally, across academic, government, non-profit and industry sectors the information is brought into a suite of tools, i.e., the Toolkit. The Toolkit will be accessible via the project’s web Portal where environmental information relevant to a potential project site and topics of interest can be readily accessed in support of the most expeditious permitting process, especially to address regulatory needs.
