Federal, state regulators give Vineyard Wind update as locals remain frustrated

Nearly a month after a damaged offshore wind turbine sent debris into the Atlantic Ocean, turning the small Massachusetts island of Nantucket into an environmental flashpoint, the cleanup and fallout are still unfolding as local residents express growing frustration with the response to the incident. State and federal regulators came to a community meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 7, in an attempt to provide some more information about the ongoing Vineyard Wind incident.

“We don’t have a very good understanding of what those human health impacts could be. The science is evolving,” Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries Assistant Director and Shellfish Program Leader Chrissy Petitpas said. “We currently have no public health standards or tolerance levels established for these contaminants, so it’s very difficult to manage.”

Many residents expressed dissatisfaction with the perceived non-transparent and inadequate response to the turbine failure, which some feel has exposed a broader issue of insufficient government communication and preparedness.

“I think this whole response has been woefully inadequate by the feds and state agencies and representatives,” one community member stated. “This incident is far more than a local incident. It’s a wake-up call for a national incident. It’s disturbing, unacceptable and quite disingenuous. They should be more forthcoming with the answers and what’s going on, rather than trying to say, ‘Oh, we’ve done everything correctly.’ Obviously they have not done everything correctly. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this pickle.”

“It’s a shame that it’s taken three and a half weeks for you people to get here and bring us a lot of non-answers,” another resident remarked. “We’re just supposed to keep having trash and debris roll into our beaches and into the water column and into the mouths of the animals that live out there? It seems that’s pretty unacceptable, because while everyone’s standing pointing fingers and getting ready for their lawsuits, we are in danger of much more environmental disaster here.”

State Sen. Julian Cyr, who represents the Cape and Islands district in Massachusetts, attended the meeting and criticized the response to the incident, describing the lack of communication following the turbine blade failure as “alarming and grossly substandard.”

However, Cyr left the meeting early, before taking questions from the public, which further fueled the community’s frustration.

“I wanted to point out that sometime before 6:25, Julian Cyr left the room. One of my questions for him was, ‘How can you be independent if you are getting ongoing campaign funding from Vineyard Wind and many of its senior employees?” one resident questioned.

“My main comments were going to be for our senator, but I see his interest, as usual, is not in helping Nantucket,” another attendee added.

This community meeting in Nantucket took place with Tropical Storm Debby currently on its way towards the island. A development officials said could cause even more debris to detach from the turbine.