From the Daily Caller
Irving Klinsky
Contributor
Residents of Nantucket, Massachusetts, spoke out at city hall on Wednesday against a wind power company's “turbine blade failure incident” that caused debris to wash up on a beach.
Officials in the tiny island town, located 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, were forced to leave on Tuesday due to “a large amount of floating debris and sharp fiberglass shards,” according to a statement posted on Facebook by the Nantucket Port Authority. South Shore beaches closed. During the town hall, locals accused Vineyard Wind, an offshore wind development company operating near the island, of taking too long to notify the community and clean up the site, according to a video of the event posted by Nantucket Current on X.
“This happened on a Saturday night… Sailors were not notified until Monday; this is unacceptable. The town was not notified until Monday,” Nantucket Charter Boat Captain Bobby DeCosta said at City Hall. No one in this room has seen that. I promise. We have a bunch of people here in suits trying to cover their tracks,” DeCosta continued, pointing to the Vineyard Wind representatives in attendance.
DeCosta also said the cleanup should have happened earlier, saying anyone with advance knowledge of prevailing winds in the area knew the winds would eventually reach the Nantucket coast. (Related: Major environmental groups team up with foreign oil majors to industrialize oceans)
“Anyone who knows anything about water knows that the tides around this wind farm are northeast/southwest, the prevailing summer winds are southwest, and these things end up on the beach,” DeCosta said. “They were starting this A tidal analysis had to be done before the project started, so when they said, 'Oh, we have to do a [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] Study to see where this stuff goes…and they hope it doesn't end up on the beach so they don't have to deal with as much.
Another video shows local lobsterman Dan Pronk holding a piece of fiberglass that washed up on a beach during a town hall meeting, lamenting the impact the debris had on his business and the environment, while also A personal message to Klaus Moeller, CEO of Vineyard Wind.
“I caught 800 lobster traps where you put these tombstones and that was the end of my business… when you applied [fiberglass]…You have to wear a respirator. what is the reason? Because it's poisonous. If you breathed this smoke… you would be taller than a rat,” he continued. “So, it's poisonous. What do you have to say about that, Klaus?
A spokesman for the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement told NBC Boston on Tuesday that Vineyard Wind's operations “have been shut down until further notice” following the incident.
The Town of Nantucket on Thursday called the turbine debris a “crisis” and said “Vineyard Windboats are on site collecting fiberglass debris; a very large fragment is below the surface, in the water column,” according to Nantucket Current An article on X.
The Biden administration is pushing for greater construction and use of offshore wind farms as part of its broader green agenda to reduce the use of fossil fuels. As the industry grows rapidly, recent wind farm projects have been plagued by problems and delays due to high costs and faulty parts.
Vineyard Winds did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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