PROVIDENCE - Rhode Island's congressional delegation met with Governor Carcieri and other officials on Friday for a briefing on the progress of two wind farms being proposed in state coastal waters.

Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed and Representatives Patrick J. Kennedy and James R. Langevin were at the closed-door meeting at the State House to discuss regulatory issues surrounding the proposals, and to hear a presentation on a state-coordinated ocean-zoning project that will determine where the turbines could be installed.

That zoning project, known as the Special Area Management Plan, is on schedule to be completed next August, according to the executive director of the Coastal Resources Management Council, Grover Fugate, who gave the presentation.

J. Michael Saul, interim executive director of the state Economic Development Corporation, and Fred Hashway, the EDC's director of government affairs, were also at the meeting.

The delegation has periodically been briefed on Deepwater Wind's proposals to install 5 to 8 turbines three miles from Block Island by 2012 and, at a later date, to put up 100 turbines at least 15 miles from the Rhode Island shoreline.

Deepwater, based in New Jersey, was aware of the session, but did not have a representative there, according to a spokeswoman for the company.

After the meeting that lasted more than an hour, Reed said that the CRMC's ocean-mapping effort is going well.

"It's good science, and they're well-positioned to develop the proposed project in state waters," he said.

Kennedy said that the state is in a good position to build the first offshore wind farm in the country. If that happens, a turbine manufacturing industry could sprout in Rhode Island.

"We'd like to be the first state," he said.

Is that realistic?

"Absolutely," said Langevin. "It's the thing we need right now to get the economy back on track."