More pieces of damaged Vineyard Wind turbine falling into ocean, blade "could detach soon"
BOSTON - Residents were lined out the door Wednesday evening at Nantucket's Select Board meeting. It was their first chance to address the company behind the wind farm just south of the island.
Vineyard Wind is behind the first in the nation commercial wind farm being developed just 15 miles from Nantucket. Earlier this year, the company celebrated the first production of power from the turbines. There are roughly a dozen installed but the company is planning to crank out 62 turbines by the project's end.
On Saturday, part of a blade from a turbine broke and sent debris into the ocean. During Wednesday night's meeting, town leaders grilled Vineyard Wind's CEO about the delay in notification.
Nantucket residents want answers
"We didn't hear anything for 48 hours," said Brooke Mohr. "We are asking questions you don't have answers for. I don't want to wait a week to get a bunch of answers."
Debris started washing ashore by Monday. The town closed several beaches to the south while they worked to clean up the fiberglass.
For its part, Vineyard Wind CEO, Klaus Moeller said, "This is a very serious situation. I am really truly sorry this impacted your beautiful beaches here."
Each blade is longer than a football field and weighs more than 70 tons.
Damaged blade could "detach soon"
During the meeting, Moeller rushed away after he said he received an update on the "integrity of the blade."
A representative for the company later returned to the meeting and said the remaining portion of the blade was still intact, but stated there was "an increased possibility it could detach soon." They also stated new debris entered the water.
A boom had been sent to the site and the company said they were working to deploy it.
