Debris from a damaged wind turbine blade has been washing up on the shores of Nantucket, Mass., prompting the closure of several beaches to swimmers and spurring an investigation into what caused the mishap.
The damage to the blade occurred on Saturday evening at Vineyard Wind, the country’s second large-scale offshore wind farm, which is 14 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. It’s still under construction but the first turbines began generating electricity in February.
The companies behind the project, Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, plan to install a total of 62 turbines by the end of the year that could, at full strength, produce 800 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 400,000 homes.
The turbines being installed at Vineyard Wind are enormous, featuring 351-foot-long blades that can reach heights taller than the Eiffel Tower.
The damaged blade appeared to experience a break approximately 65 feet from its root, Craig Gilvarg, the communications director for Vineyard Wind, said in an email. The blade was still undergoing testing at the time. The company quickly recovered three large pieces from the ocean, he added, and “nearly the entirety of the blade remains affixed to the turbine and has not fallen into the water.”
It is unclear what caused the blade to break, but green and white debris as well as sharp fiberglass shards have been washing up on shore, and the Nantucket Harbormaster announced on Tuesday that six beaches on the south side of the island would be closed to swimmers. No injuries were reported.
In a statement, the developers of Vineyard Wind said they had deployed two teams to Nantucket to pick up the nontoxic fiberglass fragments and would patrol the beaches for additional debris, which would typically be less than one square foot in size. A safety perimeter had also been set up in the waters around the damaged turbine.
The companies said that while the fiberglass debris were not hazardous to people, they recommended that beachgoers not try to pick up pieces on their own.
GE Vernova, the manufacturer of the turbines used at Vineyard Wind, said in a statement that it had launched an investigation into the cause of the damage.
The incident comes at a turbulent time for the nascent offshore wind industry. Several proposed wind farms off the coasts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York have been canceled or postponed over the past few years as inflation and rising interest rates have upended the economics of the projects. While many Northeastern states are still trying to build offshore wind farms, seeing the technology as their best option for generating emissions-free power, the projects have sometimes faced intense opposition from fishing groups and local homeowners.
The industry could soon face another obstacle: Former President Donald J. Trump, who is now seeking a second term in the White House, has been sharply critical of offshore wind, vowing to halt new projects on “day one” of his presidency if he is re-elected.
Vineyard Wind was the second large commercial offshore wind farm in the United States to begin generating electricity, after the nearby South Fork Wind project, which began producing power in December and sending it to New York State.