A charter boat fisherman was among the first to discover the wreckage — a “mess,” he called it, deep off the coast of Massachusetts. From behind a veil of pea soup-thick fog emerged hundreds of white and green fiberglass and Styrofoam pieces, some as small as a fingernail, some as large as a truck hood. By the following morning, the tide had carried the debris about 12 nautical miles and scattered it across Nantucket Island’s beaches. Residents woke to a shoreline covered in trash, fiberglass shards mixed in with seaweed and shells, waves thrusting flotsam onto the sand.
It did not take long to follow the breadcrumb trail to its source: Vineyard Wind, an offshore wind farm located south of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. On Saturday, July 13th, 2024, a nearly 115,000-pound blade broke from one of the turbines, shattered, and littered at least six truckloads’ worth of waste into the ocean.
The stakes for renewable energy advocates could not have been higher. Scientists, environmental groups, offshore wind developers, investors, and stakeholders from across the world had all been closely monitoring Vineyard Wind, which, with a planned 62 turbines, was on track to be the first large-scale commercial offshore wind farm in the United States. Dozens of other projects with contracts pending construction had hoped to glean insight from Vineyard Wind as a leading example. A disaster like this would put the nascent offshore wind industry under intense scrutiny and had the potential to throw future projects into jeopardy.
For Nantucketers, the timing of the break was devastating. Not only is mid-July peak tourism season on the island, that particular week was one of the hottest in recorded history. As the sun scorched Nantucket’s amber sands, fiberglass washed ashore, rendering the island’s southern beaches unsafe for use.
The harbormaster deployed lifeguards, most of whom are in their late teens and early twenties, to clear the refuse. They donned latex gloves and red uniform swimsuits to haul large fiberglass segments onto ATVs. Vineyard Wind sent its own crew for beach cleanup, and warned community members not to pick up the debris themselves. Locals ignored the advice. These were their beaches, after all, and the litter was overwhelming. Within days, a couple of young men had capitalized on the mounting frustration by selling T-shirts that read “Vineyard Wind is ISIS” on the town docks.
Nantucket’s Select Board, the island’s main governing body, called an emergency meeting with Vineyard Wind’s CEO Klaus Møller. The public was invited to a brown conference room located inside the police department, with the Select Board seated at a V-shaped table at the front. Møller arrived in a loose blazer, rectangular eyeglasses, and a white dress shirt. He is originally from Denmark; Vineyard Wind is owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, a US subsidiary of the Spanish electric utility company Iberdrola. Danish accent aside, Møller resembled many of the local people sitting in the audience: white, scruffy beard, crew cut, middle-aged.
These similarities did not help him, however. While Møller expressed that Vineyard Wind was taking the issue seriously, it was clear he wanted to deescalate the community’s concerns. He described the blade debris as nontoxic, a characterization that unnerved the audience. People interrupted him in protest, some coughing loudly. Islanders wanted to know: If the material was nontoxic, why didn’t they want us touching it? Did the blade contain PFAS, the forever chemicals known to cause cancer? What about the squid, oysters, scallops, and mussels sucking up fiberglass shards in the ocean? A surf instructor lost a week of work during the busiest month of the year, when he, like most Nantucketers, earns a large portion of his annual income. Would he be compensated? At one point, a lobsterman wearing a Trump T-shirt approached Møller and accused him of not paying attention during audience questions. He was told to return to his seat.
Roger Martella, the chief corporate officer of GE Vernova — the subsidiary of General Electric that manufactures the turbines for Vineyard Wind — joined the meeting by Zoom from Cape Cod. Prior to joining GE, Martella was previously general counsel for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He and a technical expert explained that the turbine blades are made out of the same material as boats: fiberglass, Styrofoam, balsa wood, and a binding agent. He reiterated Møller’s point that they were taking the issue seriously and said GE Vernova feels Nantucket is their “backyard,” since they are headquartered in Cambridge. Martella repeated multiple times that the company would conduct a root-cause analysis to investigate what went wrong with the blade.
A nesting gull in the dunes in front of Great Point Lighthouse on the Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
From the shore of Nantucket’s Madaket Beach, wind turbines can be seen on the horizon. A cluster of 62 turbines sitting 15 nautical miles from Nantucket is operated by Vineyard Wind. May 18th, 2025. Many people are opposed to the turbines, especially after an accident on July 13th, 2024, where a 115,000-pound blade from a Vineyard Wind turbine malfunctioned and broke off, creating massive amounts of debris. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A house on stilts sits at the edge of Madaket Beach on the south shore of Nantucket, which has experienced higher rates of erosion than other parts of the island. May 18th, 2025. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
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