At Sea And On Land, Protests Against Vineyard Wind

At sea and on land, Nantucket residents protested on Sunday against Vineyard Wind and the development of offshore wind energy in the waters southwest of the island.

Ever since the blade failure of one of Vineyard Wind’s GE Vernova Haliade-X turbines on July 13 that sent thousands of pieces of fiberglass and styrofoam debris onto Nantucket’s beaches and beyond, anger over the country’s first large-scale offshore wind farm has been brewing on the island.

A “flotilla” protest organized by the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association descended on the broken turbine in the southwest corner of Vineyard Wind’s lease area. Approximately 20 boats from around the region - including Dan Pronk's lobster boat Black Earl, Pete Kaizer's Althea K, and Carl Bois' Topspin, all out of Nantucket - participated in the flotilla protest, waving signs and circling the damaged turbine blade.

“It’s important to me to be involved because it’s affecting our lives negatively in numerous ways, and it’s also affecting my livelihood,” Pronk said. “Between the garbage washing up on our beaches daily, to our electric rates possibly tripling. The wildlife these things are killing. It’s all foreign-owned. I could go on and on. There aren’t any positive sides to these things.”

Bois, who was among the first to encounter and report the debris from the turbine failure before Vineyard Wind disclosed it, said he joined the flotilla because he has long held concerns about the development of offshore wind energy.

“The thing about making a statement is that if you don’t speak up you don’t have any right to complain when things go wrong," Bois said. “From day one I’ve had concerns about ocean-based wind farms. Beyond debris from broken blades or proving the impact on whales, there are so many facets of the ocean that could be at risk. The risks aren’t worth the minuscule reward that might come from it."

Meanwhile on Sunday, a small group of island residents gathered at Cisco Beach holding hands and carrying signs. Among them was Mary Chalke, once again wearing her whale costume as she has done at other times around the island.

“The blade went in and as you know, it’s 60 tons of fiberglass shards and foam into the water and this is the heart of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale habitat,” she said. “They’re baleen whales. They feed by skimming the surface of the water. So they’re going to be ingesting it as this gets broken down into microplastics, and our fish, and our seals.”

The Cisco Beach protest took place simultaneously with the "flotilla" protest organized by the New England Fishermen's Stewardship Association.

"They really need to stop these projects," Chalke said. "This is three blades in just over three months. They need to stop them, take those blades down, and barge them back to Europe. We have to see the disaster before we believe it.

“This is an amazing journey. I don’t really know what is going to happen, but we're at an inflection point where the public now understands this is not good for our environment," Chalke continued. "We're angry, we're angry at our Select Board for going into a financial partnership. We're angry with our conservation organizations that took money from these wind companies to abandon the plight of the right whale in favor of offshore wind. I think people are feeling pretty betrayed and it's losing steam fast.”

The Vineyard Wind project remains partially suspended and under investigation by the federal government.

Sunday's protests came just days after a wind turbine at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm off the coast of England suffered a blade failure as it was being commissioned. It was the second blade failure at Dogger Bank involving GE Vernova's Haliade-X turbine, the same model that is being installed by Vineyard Wind in the waters southwest of Nantucket.

Local groups - including ACK For Whales on Nantucket and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard have called for a moratorium on offshore wind in the weeks after the Vineyard Wind blade failure.