Wind farm debris on Nantucket beaches causes high-summer pain

One example of the potpourri of green foam debris from the broken Vineyard Wind turbine blade that has washed ashore on Nantucket, impacting business and beachgoers.

Eve Zuckoff covers the environment and human impacts of climate change for CAI.

July 17, 2024

Nantucket is facing a prolonged clean-up, potentially, after debris from a broken turbine blade from Vineyard Wind’s offshore wind farm has begun washing up on the island’s south-facing beaches. CAI’s Eve Zuckoff spent the morning on Nobadeer Beach and spoke with All Things Considered’s John Basile about what she found.

Here’s a transcript of their conversation.

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John Basile Would you tell us what you saw?

Eve Zuckoff Sure. So I was on Nobadeer Beach on the south-facing side of the island. And right away, I started seeing pieces of these sharp, hard, green bits of foam. And some were tiny—like the size of a bead. And then some were a little bigger: the size of a penny and then the size of my palm. And they were everywhere. I couldn’t walk 15 steps without finding one. People were also describing to me massive pieces of this foam and of fiberglass—I mean, some described pieces the size of a car. Now, most of that, all of that on Nobadeer, when I was there this morning and afternoon, was gone. I saw none of the big stuff. Which kind of makes sense, because at the same time I was there, I was seeing ATVs going by with people who said they were collecting the debris. A lot has been picked up.

John Basile What did you hear from locals about the impact of the debris?

Eve Zuckoff There are a lot of concerns about the beaches. You know, swimming was closed on these south-side beaches for about 24 hours by the town. Now folks are welcome back for swimming, but town officials said that shoes maybe should be on. Keep your pets away. These kinds of restrictions are really tough, too, on the tourist economy, right? I mean, one business owner I talked to, a surf school owner, said that every day, every good-weather day that he is not out there, he is losing $10,000. I mean, that that’s a really big concern for folks—that this could affect the tourism at the height of the season.

John Basile Now, has this event changed the way people are thinking about offshore wind?

Eve Zuckoff You know, there were mixed opinions. I talked to some people who said, this is terrible, but we’ve seen the oil and gas industry create way more massive environmental damage, not just with oil spills in the ocean—a very literal comparison to this—but how the oil and gas industry drives climate change. Others I talked to on the beach said that they’d always been worried about offshore wind, and this just affirmed those worries. And others said, ‘You know, I didn’t really think about offshore wind before. Now I’m feeling like I’ve got to look a lot closer.’

John Basile And what’s the status of the wind farm operation now?

Eve Zuckoff Federal officials have suspended operations—Vineyard Wind’s operations—until they can work together with the company to figure out what caused this blade failure. We know it happened during a testing period. Vineyard Wind officials are expected to update town officials on the blade failure and debris recovery efforts during tonight’s selectboard meeting. That begins at 5:30 p.m. And so far, Vineyard Wind officials have said that they are in full compliance with the federal suspension order. They say they’re fully committed to a swift and safe recovery of all debris. They want people to reach out and share what they’ve found, so that it can be recovered. And they’ve launched a claims process for local businesses to report the financial damages that they may suffer during this period.

John Basile That is CAI’s Eve Zuckoff. Thanks so much for your reporting on this.