Winter 2024: CBI in Action

Atlantic Coast Regional Fund Administrator for Fisheries' Compensatory Mitigation for Offshore Wind Impacts

As offshore wind (OSW) develops from Maine to North Carolina, individual states and individual OSW projects have had to negotiate compensatory mitigation and determine how to administer those funds. This has led to a host of different claims processes, eligibility requirements, and inefficiencies. To address this issue more regionally to provide fishermen greater certainty, clarity, and fairness, CBI, in partnership with the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind (SIOW), 11 states, commercial fishing industry advisors, and OSW developers, worked over the last three years to create a regional fund administrator. CBI and SIOW coordinated among the states, conducted research, facilitated development of a framework, raised some $2 million across sectors, prepared and supported procurement of that administrator, and designed and convened the Design Oversight Committee and the For Hire Recreational Fishing Committee to guide the process. The collaborative process led to the selection of BrownGreer and Carbon Trust as the fund administration designer along with the members of the two advisory and oversight committees. This work was initially funded by NYSERDA and NJ DEP.

Vessel Strike Reduction Workshop

There are only a few hundred North Atlantic right whales remaining. Once commonly hunted for whale oil, the species has been listed as endangered since 1970, with the population most directly affected by fishing gear entanglement and vessel strikes. In March 2024, in partnership with NOAA Fisheries, CBI designed and facilitated a large, multi-day workshop on the use of technology to protect North Atlantic right whales from vessel strikes. Nearly 600 people registered for the workshop— about 150 people in-person and the remainder participating online. 

The workshop involved extensive hybrid participation in full and breakout sessions for the hundreds of participants. Stephanie Horii, CBI Senior Associate, created a project planning website, interfacing with the technical livestream, as well as managing in-person and online polling with Mentimeter. The team developed graphics, summary tables, and rubrics to help participants understand and discuss the complex elements of this issue. Given the contentious and nationwide impact of this issue, an informational webinar was first held in December 2023 to discuss the workshop scope, and six additional pre-workshop webinars were held to allow interested participants to weigh in on the design of the approach and the technical focus for the various risk factors to be discussed at the March 2024 workshop.

The workshop focused on identifying and assessing opportunities for technology to reduce risk in each element of the risk chain: spotting and identifying whales with great accuracy; synthesizing information on whale presence to make it more useful to mariners; improving methods for communicating whale presence information to vessels in a way that is both timely and easy to access; and developing mechanisms to use on-board technologies to reduce risk of strike. The workshop brought together a wide range of vessel operators (from fast-moving recreational boats to ocean-going cargo ships and cruise liners), environmentalists, technology firms, researchers, scientists, and government representatives in a two-day public session, followed by a half-day session for representatives from the U.S. and Canadian governments to discuss the results and next steps.

FPIC in Aquaculture

Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) is a fundamental right recognized by international human rights law, which ensures that indigenous peoples can give or withhold consent to activities or projects affecting their lands, territories, and resources. FPIC protects the rights and interests of indigenous communities by ensuring their participation in decisions that affect them and promoting sustainable and equitable development. Now, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), which promotes sustainable seafood farming around the world, is seeking to revise its Farm Standard (and Feed Standard) to better incorporate the rights of indigenous peoples by including the concept of FPIC more directly. 
 
CBI is supporting ASC in this endeavor, helping it navigate the complexities of this international principle in practice. The effort is starting in Chile, where CBI and partner organization Ngülamtun have been working with indigenous leaders, aquaculture companies, NGOs, and others to understand the current context around indigenous rights and aquaculture, and to explore with local actors how ASC might meaningfully include FPIC in its standard. ASC plans to replicate this work in other parts of the world as it moves forward with this revision to its standard.

The Muddy River

The Muddy River, which runs through Boston’s Emerald Necklace park system, is the most polluted tributary in the Charles River watershed. A cleaner Muddy River is thus a priority for the well-being of its surrounding communities. But the Muddy is complicated: it’s been built over to such a degree that, in many places, it is channelized under streets and buildings, and it meanders through the dense communities of Brookline, Boston, and Newton.
 
Working with the Charles River Watershed Association, CBI has brought together stormwater experts, community representatives, conservationists, and more for the Muddy River Vision Plan. From the fall of 2023, CBI has been gathering input from technical partners and other relevant parties to identify concerns and generate a vision for a clean, restored Muddy River. A CBI-produced podcast pieced together different perspectives of the river and what makes this space so precious to so many. Meetings and focus groups with municipal leaders and stakeholders followed by a public charrette will help prioritize what kinds of restoration options to include in the Vision as well as how to maximize co-benefits such as increased access to recreation and enjoyment of nature, solutions to build community resilience to flooding and extreme heat, and enhancement of the beauty and vitality of the area. In spring of 2025, CBI will help the Charles River Watershed Association develop a draft vision plan to be shared back with the community. 

Headwaters of the Colorado Initiative

Along the Colorado-Wyoming border, hotter, dryer summers and recent megafires have threatened the vulnerable water supply of the Colorado River basin. To address this crisis, forest and river managers, conservation organizations, water districts, and family ranches have formed a new coalition, the Headwaters of the Colorado Initiative. The coalition has brought its divergent perspectives to tackle tough questions playing out on a rural western landscape facing catastrophic wildfire, such as: How much does the forest need fire to be healthy? To what extent should timber harvesting be encouraged to support the local economy, and how much vegetation should be left on the ground? To what extent are the health of the watershed and forest aligned or synonymous on this landscape? How much coordination and new federal funding are worth the cost of extra bureaucracy and exposure for organizations used to going it alone and off the public radar? 
 
The Headwaters of the Colorado Initiative has engaged CBI to help it answer these and other questions with a steering committee made up of forest managers, agency representatives, county commissioners, non-profit organizations, and others representing the distinct fields of forest management and watershed health. CBI is helping convene leaders from Wyoming and Colorado, states with profound differences in culture, regulatory approach, resources, and stages of planning. CBI has worked with the Coalition to take the results from surveys and interviews to better define its purpose, function, overall objectives, and organization structure, as well as near- and longer-term objectives in consultation with partners and stakeholders. The result will be a set of convening and strategic planning documents that guide the group’s work in the years ahead. 

A Downtown Housing Plan for Palo Alto

In Palo Alto, the median price of a home is roughly $3.2 million, and the median rent is “among the highest in the nation.” The lack of affordable housing is tied up with an array of challenges facing the city: its “workforce is greatly diminished from its pre-pandemic levels” and “the area is seeing retail vacancies of about 15%,” according to Palo Alto Online. To address a lack of mixed-income housing, the city of Palo Alto has begun work on a Downtown Housing Plan. The goal is to increase housing production in downtown Palo Alto, which will mean establishing development standards, pursuing sustained community engagement, and managing technical and design collaboration.

CBI, working in partnership with the design firm WRT, has been facilitating the effort, which included a community open house and involves organizing a Community Advisory Group, bringing together residents, property owners, business owners, and developers. 

Sacramento Valley Sub-Basins

Since the passage of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA) across the state have been working to meet and maintain sustainable conditions. This requires close collaboration between county officials, water and resource management agencies, affected interests and communities, the general public, and technical experts, along with collaboration between the GSAs themselves across different jurisdictions and interconnected underground basins.

In the northern Sacramento valley, CBI is part of a team of technical and facilitation consultants working on sustainable groundwater management implementation, focusing on several basins across Tehama County and Glenn County. This work—supported by a $15 million grant from the California Department of Water Resources—includes addressing data gaps and supporting technical studies and projects to replenish of sub-basins, identify unused surface water, and more. The range and technical depth of this work requires coordination between a range of stakeholders, agency representatives, and researchers, and CBI has been supporting that coordination through outreach initiatives, GSA and public meetings, and strategic planning that fosters inclusive and productive collaboration. CBI also continues to work in adjacent counties, helping multiple agencies coordinate on groundwater management across many jurisdictions.