Wind Turbine Blade Breaks, Washes Ashore. Power Production Shut Down as Company Faces Investigation and Litigation

"More pieces of a broken wind turbine off the coast of Massachusetts are falling into the Atlantic Ocean," reports CBS News on Thursday. "The CEO of Vineyard Wind was at Nantucket's Select Board meeting Wednesday evening, apologizing and answering questions about the initial break when he suddenly had to leave because the situation is getting worse." CNN reports the debris has been "prompting beach closures and frustrating locals at the peak of the summer season" since the blade broke a week ago, and then folded over:Since then, foam debris and fiberglass - including some large and dangerously sharp pieces - have washed onto beaches. A "significant part" of the remaining damaged blade detached from the turbine early Thursday morning, Vineyard Wind said in a news release. The US Coast Guard confirmed to CNN it has located a 300-foot piece of the blade. There are few answers to what caused the turbine to fail, and the incident has prompted questions and anger from city officials and Nantucket residents... The shards of turbine forced officials to close beaches earlier this week, though they have since reopened. [Nantucket select board chair Brooke Mohr] said the town would monitor for additional debris and adjust schedules accordingly. "Public safety is our most immediate concern, these fiberglass pieces are quite sharp," Mohr said, making swimming unsafe... The federal government is conducting its own investigation and has ordered Vineyard Wind to stop all its wind turbines producing electricity until it can be determined whether any other blades were impacted, a Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement spokesperson said in a statement. The federal government has also ordered the companies to preserve any equipment that could help determine the cause of the failure. The federal suspension order effectively halts further construction on Vineyard Wind, the first large-scale wind farm being installed in the US. The wind farm, a joint venture of Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, has 10 turbines up and running so far with plans to install 62 total... The project was set to double the number of turbines spinning off the East Coast, and state leaders in Massachusetts have viewed it as a big boost to the state's ability to generate electricity. Now the project is in limbo, and could remain so until the investigation is complete. The article quotes the head of government affairs at wind blade manufacturer GE Vernova as saying a breaking wind turbine is "highly unusual and rare." But Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Skoust Moller called it a "very serious situation" and apologized to local residents. Meanwhile, the Boston Herald reported Friday that the Nantucket Select Board "is set to pursue litigation against the wind energy company in connection to the blade failure..."Town officials, residents and local mariners have all said they didn't learn of the incident until Monday evening, roughly 48 hours after the fact and just hours before debris started to wash ashore, prompting beaches to close Tuesday... The "significant portion" of the 107-meter blade that detached from the turbine Thursday morning sunk to the ocean floor. Crews were slated to recover the fiberglass "in due course," town officials wrote in a Friday update... Residents are not taking kindly to Vineyard Wind's assertion that the debris - fiberglass fragments ranging in size from small pieces to larger sections, typically green or white - is not toxic. Vineyard Wind has deployed a crew of 56 contractors to assist in the cleanup of the island's beaches, and town officials said Friday that no town staff are actively engaged in removing the debris. The wind energy company reported Wednesday that crews had removed 17 cubic yards of debris, enough to fill more than six truckloads. "The joint venture of Connecticut-based Avangrid and Denmark-based Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners is developing a plan to test water quality around the island while working on a process for financial claims."

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