Drifting debris from the Vineyard Wind turbine blade failure appeared headed toward Cape Cod, as Nantucket elected officials consider suing project developers over the July 13 incident and continuing cleanup.
After several days of cleanup by Vineyard Wind and contractors the island’s south shore beaches were reopened for the following weekend. On Sunday Nantucket Harbormaster Sheila Lucey reported a large piece of the collapsed blade from turbine AW38 turbine near Madaquecham Beach.
“It will cause a hazard to mariners and beach patrons," Lucey wrote on the harbormaster social media pages. "All mariners and swimmers please take warning and avoid this area.”
On Friday afternoon the harbormaster at Chatham on Cape Cod reported that debris was located 3.5 miles southeast of Monomoy Island, according to a July 20 update from Vineyard Wind officials. Nine vessels were dispatched to the area and recovered the debris late in the afternoon, and state and local officials on Cape Cod were notified, the company said.
At dawn Saturday helicopter surveillance “showed no debris west of Monomoy or stage harbor area as of this morning, but monitoring will continue,” the company said.
As of Monday afternoon, "approximately 25 percent of the blade remains upright at the 12 o’clock position," Nantucket municipal officials reported in an online update. "About 50 percent of the blade is still hanging down, and its composition is mostly fiberglass. The part of the blade that descended into the ocean last Thursday morning has been located but not yet retrieved."
Vineyard Wind is in the process of setting up a process for financial claims, municipal officials said.
The July 13 break in the GE Vernova turbine blade happened as the manufacturer was commissioning the generator, preparing to transfer control and responsibility to Vineyard Wind, according to the developers.
Following the accident GE Vernova stock took a 9.3 percent decline in markets July 17. Vineyard Wind, a joint venture of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid, mounted its intense response facing a public relations calamity at the height of the New England summer tourist season.
The 806-megawatt project is the second operational, utility-scale wind energy project in U.S. federal waters, and a continuing target of intense opposition from commercial fishing and coastal homeowners’ groups, and critics of the Biden administration’s renewable energy policy.
Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Møller had to hastily leave a July 17 evening meeting with the Nantucket Select Board, apologizing that there had been new developments with the damaged turbine blade. Early Thursday morning a big piece of the blade fully detached, sending more debris into the sea.
A drift model by the Coast Guard anticipated more debris could head for Nantucket up toward Cape Cod. Vineyard Wind officials said they were increasing a local team to more than 50 employees and contractors, including its local construction company Robert B. Our and National Resource Corporation, an emergency response contractor.
