Does Nantucket Need An Offshore Wind Stabilization Fund?

Should Nantucket have a dedicated stabilization fund for the potential financial ramifications of offshore wind? Voters will get the chance to decide at Town Meeting in May.

Proposed by Val Oliver, the founding director of the anti-wind political action group ACK For Whales, Article 36 would route future revenue connected to offshore wind, as well as some money already received by the town, into a special-purpose stabilization to pay for damages from offshore wind projects, cover litigation against offshore wind farms, and provide information about “the harm to Nantucket and its inhabitants arising from off-shore wind farms.”

The article has drawn pushback for both its form and its content. Town attorneys and members of the Finance Committee have argued that the article legally can’t appropriate money received before Town Meeting, would be too slow to respond to emergencies, and would limit the town’s financial flexibility.

The Finance Committee voted unanimously to take no action on the article. Finance Committee members pointed to existing insurance policies held by offshore wind companies, and the fact that Town Meeting has to vote to authorize the spending of any money held in stabilization funds

“If you have to wait for a Town Meeting to authorize using the money, then it's not going to be able to be used, so I don't know if a stabilization fund is the right avenue for what you're trying to accomplish,” Finance Committee chair Jill Vieth said. “If there's something that happens quickly, like a blade failure, and it's unexpected, you're not going to be able to access that money.”

Oliver argued the article was a necessary safeguard against the uncertain future of offshore wind, and would ensure Nantucket is prepared for any future emergencies.

“There are so many unknowns; you don't know what is going to happen,” she said. “We need, as a community, to be ready. We don't know what the next issue is going to be, and we're making the conversation happen. That's our goal.”

The debate took on a different tenor after Vineyard Wind announced it was suing turbine manufacturer GE Vernova for backing out of the project. Vineyard Wind warned that GE Vernova’s exit could imperil the wind farm, leaving behind “a dormant wind farm graveyard.”

Oliver seemed to suggest in her comment that the article was at least in part an effort to start a conversation around the alleged dangers of offshore wind, or at least bring the conversation back to the forefront, after it had receded in recent months with Vineyard Wind fading from the headlines. But now, with the lawsuit and potential closure of the wind farm looming, Vineyard Wind is back at the forefront of many voters’ minds.

Money dedicated to the fund could also be used to “seek termination and removal of existing off-shore wind farms affecting Nantucket” and “oppose and prevent the permitting, approval, installation and operation of off-shore wind farms affecting Nantucket.”

While the article claims to be entirely for a stabilization fund, it directs the town to stake out a position against offshore wind and to tell island residents that offshore wind is harmful.

“I feel like it’s intended to raise the profile of the risk of windmills, and we’re confusing that with financial actions of the town,” Finance Committee member Chris Glowacki said. “It feels almost more [public relations]y, and trying to make us feel the pain through the operating budget now to raise the profile of the risk.”

After a Vineyard Wind turbine blade collapsed into the ocean, sending tons of debris to Nantucket’s shores, ACK For Whales, a small group most notable at the time for its largely unsuccessful lawsuits against offshore wind, was suddenly catapulted into the spotlight, speaking for a growing contingent of islanders worried about the large-scale renewable energy development off Nantucket’s coast.

But the political climate surrounding offshore wind shifted the following winter, and what had been a booming industry went cold after Donald Trump returned to office as President. Trump has aggressively pursued an anti-wind agenda. At one point, he issued an executive order shutting down nearly the entire industry on the country’s East Coast, though that order has since been largely reversed by the courts.

ACK For Whales board member Amy DiSibio worried that Trump’s assault on offshore wind could actually make the projects more dangerous to Nantucket.

“The first thing that these companies do when money gets tight is they start doing things like deferring maintenance and changing the maintenance schedule, and these projects could be stressed more, at which point your risk would go up,” she said.

Town Manager Libby Gibson said that too much focus on the risks of offshore wind might be unwarranted, given the other risks Nantucket faces.

“There are many other risks out there,” Gibson said. “There are oil spill risks, a satellite could fall out of the sky down here. We cannot possibly cover every single risk. And as far as how it worked out for us, no one is probably more irritated and dismayed by the whole thing than town administration, because we had to spend so much time on it, but we did get a settlement.”

Oliver and DiSibio proposed a few changes to the article at one Finance Committee meeting in an effort to gain the committee’s support, but they were unsuccessful, and Town Counsel John Giorgio suggested the primary change, which would have capped the money directed into the fund at $1 million annually, was not legal.