Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket Officials Blast Vineyard Wind, Deliver List Of Demands

August 4, 2025 — Nantucket officials called Vineyard Wind on the carpet Tuesday, claiming the offshore wind developer had failed to live up to its agreements with the town, and telling the company to “lead or leave.”

In a press conference Tuesday morning held on Zoom, the Nantucket Select Board made 15 demands of Vineyard Wind, setting a two-week deadline for the offshore wind company to reply. If no reply is forthcoming, or if the Select Board deems Vineyard Wind’s responses inadequate, the town is leaving all of its options open -including legal action.

The statements by town officials marked the strongest rebuke yet of Vineyard Wind since the July 2024 blade failure that littered Nantucket’s beaches with fiberglass and foam debris, and prompted federal authorities to shut down the project for nearly six months.

“This is not the first time that Vineyard Wind has seen many of these demands, so we expect two weeks is plenty of time for them to confirm their agreement, or to explain publicly why they should not be held accountable in these basic ways,” said Select Board member Brooke Mohr, who was the board’s chair during the July 2024 blade failure.

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

MASSACHUSETTS: Nantucket Demands Accountability from Vineyard Wind After “Broken Promises” and Safety Failures

July 30, 2025 — Nantucket delivered a blistering rebuke to Vineyard Wind on Tuesday, accusing the offshore wind developer of a pattern of deception, negligence, and disregard for the island community it promised to protect.

At a press conference, town officials outlined 15 sweeping accountability demands after what they called Vineyard Wind’s “empty pledges and unfulfilled commitments.” Officials said the company has failed on every major front — from basic safety measures to transparent communication — leaving the island vulnerable and eroding public trust.

“Vineyard Wind has left Nantucket, its residents, and its visitors with empty pledges and unfulfilled commitments. We are done waiting for them to do the right thing,” said Select Board member and former chair Brooke Mohr. “We call on Vineyard Wind’s owners, investors, federal regulators, and our elected leaders to stand with us in holding the company to its word.”

The scathing list of failures includes the company’s refusal to communicate critical safety information, its inability to activate light pollution controls in a timely manner, and its failure to create any meaningful emergency response plans despite last year’s high-profile turbine blade failure

Read the full article at The Newport Buzz

MASSACHUSETTS: One Year Later, Vineyard Wind Blade Failure Still Unfolding

July 16, 2025 — One year ago today, Nantucket residents awoke to reports that green debris was littering the south shore beaches from Madaket out to Tom Nevers. It quickly became clear that the thousands of pieces of fiberglass and foam had floated to the island from the Vineyard Wind farm 15 miles to the southwest following a blade failure.

After failing to notify the town about the incident for 48 hours, Vineyard Wind finally acknowledged the situation following the initial reports of debris washing up and dispatched a team to the island to begin the assessment and cleanup. But in those first few hours, it was the island’s lifeguards – some of them just teenagers – who collected the largest and most dangerous pieces of debris from the surf. Despite warnings not to, residents took it upon themselves to gather and dispose of the blade pieces.

The incident rapidly became a regional and then national news story as the town announced that all of Nantucket’s south shore beaches were closed to swimmers “due to large floating debris and sharp fiberglass shards.”

Within hours, the federal government agency responsible for monitoring the Vineyard Wind project – the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) – shut down the multi-billion-dollar project. The story of Vineyard Wind’s blade failure and the revelations that followed – including manufacturing deviations and allegations of a safety data falsification scheme at a wind turbine blade plant in Canada – would become the biggest news story of the past year.

Twelve months later, while some parts of the story have concluded, others are still unfolding and remain unresolved.

Read the full article at the Nantucket Current

MASSACHSUETTS: Maker of broken Vineyard Wind blade will pay Nantucket $10.5 million

July 15, 2025 — GE Vernova, the manufacturer of the faulty Vineyard Wind turbine blade that broke and washed onto Massachusetts shores one year ago, has agreed to pay the Town of Nantucket $10.5 million to compensate for impacts to the town and local businesses during what was peak summer tourist season.

In the days after the blade broke on July 13, 2024, the town closed beaches to swimming out of safety concerns over fiberglass shards. A local surfing business told town officials in meetings that followed about cancelled lessons. Local officials, eventually with the assistance of company officials, engaged in beach cleanups.

Under the agreement, the town will establish a “Community Claims Fund” to be administered by a third party, which will review claims submitted for cleanups, property damage and lost profit, and dole out compensation.

“We are pleased to have reached a final settlement agreement with the Town of Nantucket to provide compensation for any impacted local businesses,” said a GE Vernova spokesperson in an email Friday.

Nantucket may use any funds not dispensed through the claims process “at its discretion in the public’s interest,” per the 17-page settlement.

The multi-million dollar settlement “finally and forever” releases GE Vernova, Vineyard Wind and the town from “any and all” claims and suits related to the 2024 blade incident. It also binds the Town of Nantucket in an agreement to not sue GE Vernova over the incident.

Notably, the town stated it “would not accept” Vineyard Wind as a signatory to the settlement, though Vineyard Wind still benefits from it.

“The Town has found Vineyard Wind wanting in terms of its leadership, accountability, transparency, and stewardship in the aftermath of the blade failure,” reads the town’s FAQ page. Vineyard Wind is constructing the offshore wind farm about 15 miles south of Nantucket, using turbines built by GE Vernova.

The Light contacted both Vineyard Wind and the town Friday morning for clarification on whether Vineyard Wind requested to be a signatory on the settlement.

Read the full article at The New Bedford Light

MASSACHUSETTS: GE Vernova, Nantucket reach settlement on Vineyard Wind accident

July 15, 2025 — Nantucket and GE Vernova announced Friday they had reached a $10.5 million settlement to compensate the Massachusetts town for a blade break at Vineyard Wind last summer.

A blade detached from one of the project’s 62 turbines on July 13, 2024, crashing into the ocean and sending a plume of fiberglass debris into the water.

The accident, which was later attributed to faulty quality control at a GE Vernova factory in Quebec, was a black eye for the offshore wind industry and delayed construction of what had been heralded as the country’s first major offshore wind project.

Read the full article at E&E News

MASSACHUSETTS: Vineyard Wind Blade Break Reverberates One Year Later

July 11, 2025 — One year ago Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard got a report it had never received before.

At 7:01 p.m., about 20 miles off the Vineyard’s southern shore, large pieces of debris were scattered in the water near the Vineyard Wind wind farm.

Green and white bits of fiberglass and foam, some the size of kitchen tables, were floating in the water, and eventually, with the help of wind and tides, would make their way onto Nantucket beaches.

Nantucket charter fishing Capt. Carl Bois was one of the first people to see the bobbing detritus off the outer continental shelf when he was out on his boat the next day.

“I’ve never seen anything on the water quite like that,” he said at the time.

Not long after, Vineyarders, Nantucketers, state lawmakers and some of the highest ranking officials in Washington, D.C. learned all too well what Mr. Bois was seeing: pieces of a broken Vineyard Wind turbine blade.

On July 13, 2024, the 107-meter GE Vernova Haliade-X turbine blade on the offshore wind energy farm’s southernmost turbine snapped unexpectedly and dumped thousands of pieces of fiberglass into the ocean. Broken about 20 meters from its base, a large portion of the blade would later drop into the water, sinking to the bottom.

Read the full article at the Vineyard Gazette

Questions of transparency swirl around Vineyard Wind

May 27, 2025 — Just a fraction of Vineyard Wind’s planned offshore wind turbines are in operation despite nearly three years of construction, and the company is staying silent on what is slowing production down and when it’ll actually finish the project.

First reported by the State House News Service, Vineyard Wind 1 — an offshore wind farm 15 miles south of the Island — only has four turbines providing power to the grid, which the Times confirmed with state officials. But that is one less than what was reported in February of 2024, and Vineyard Wind is well past a goal of being fully operational by mid-2024. Avangrid, the project’s parent company, made the prediction during a boat tour of the construction site in 2023.

Now, it is uncertain when construction will finish.

Craig Gilvarg, Vineyard Wind spokesperson, declined to comment after multiple attempts to reach him.

Read the full article at MV Times

Supreme Court declines to hear challenges to Vineyard Wind

May 7, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear two cases challenging the federal approval of Vineyard Wind. The court denied the petitions Monday.

Commercial fishing interests sued the federal agencies involved in approving the wind farm, which is under construction 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

The lawsuits were originally filed in 2021 and 2022.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Supreme Court rejects 2 challenges to Vineyard Wind

May 6, 2025 — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied petitions from the fishing industry and a conservative think tank challenging the Vineyard Wind project, rejecting their March requests that the country’s highest court hear their cases.

A fishing industry lobbying group, Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA), sued the lead government regulator of offshore wind in early 2022, alleging that by approving Vineyard Wind, the agency had violated several acts, including those protecting existing ocean users and endangered species. The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), which represents fishermen and a fishing company in Rhode Island in another lawsuit, had also petitioned the Supreme Court.

RODA had already lost its case in two other courts: first, in 2023 in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, where a judge sided with the project and regulators; and second, in 2024 in the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where the judge upheld the lower court’s decision. TPPF also had its case dismissed by the lower courts.

“We are disappointed that the Supreme Court denied our petition,” said Lane Johnston, executive director of RODA, in an email Monday. “This issue is of such importance to members of the commercial fishing industry. RODA will continue our efforts to combat the destructive industrialization of the nation’s marine resources.”

Read the full story at The New Bedford Light

Supreme Court declines Vineyard Wind challenge

May 5, 2025 — The Supreme Court has declined to reconsider the Biden administration’s approval of a major offshore wind project off the Massachusetts coast, in a reprieve for an industry facing rising political headwinds.

On Monday morning, the justices denied the parallel petitions led by the fishing company Seafreeze Shoreside and the fishing industry trade group Responsible Offshore Development Alliance (RODA) challenging agencies’ approvals for the Vineyard Wind 1 project.

The 62-turbine wind farm is under construction 15 miles off the coast of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard and is expected to be completed this year. Vineyard Wind’s joint developers Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners declined through their attorney to comment on the Supreme Court’s decision.

Read the full story at E&E News