The offshore wind industry moving into waters close to our shores is no longer something in the distant future. It is here, and with it comes a need to keep a watchful eye: Are these massive companies delivering on their promises that were made to the Island and the region? Will they work with us, and not against us?
It’s a difficult question and task that will take more than just one newspaper, but Island residents, regional and national news organizations, fishermen, and anyone else invested in the waterfront as well.
At the beginning of the year — just before midnight on Jan. 2 — Vineyard Wind announced that the first gigawatts of power from the wind farm 15 miles south of the Island were delivered through an undersea cable, connecting to the New England grid near a beach in Barnstable. The developers missed an end-of-the-year target, but it was a major milestone, as the state and country look to develop greener energy alternatives.
At the end of February, Vineyard Wind announced that the first five turbines — out of 62 — were generating 68 megawatts of power, enough to power 30,000 homes in Massachusetts.
While the turbines have been built, and are working, the latest job report for Vineyard Wind has not been promising for Islanders. Out of the nearly 1,800 union and nonunion workers hired by Vineyard Wind since our reporting in January, only eight were from the Vineyard. Only one of those hires was a union job.
In fairness to Vineyard Wind, they say that the 80 jobs that they have promised will go to Islanders later in the development, when the need for workers to operate and maintain spinning turbines is greater. We hope they hold to that commitment.
It isn’t just Vineyard Wind that is moving forward. Federal officials announced at the end of February that they had completed an environmental review of New England Wind, a much larger operation, planned for waters about 20 miles from Chappaquiddick. The developer — also a subsidiary of Avangrid — is proposing up to 129 wind turbines, and up to five offshore export cables, that would transmit electricity to onshore transmission systems in the town of Barnstable and Bristol County.
There are several other proposals in the pipeline as well, including SouthCoast Wind, South Fork Wind, Sunrise Wind, Bay State Wind — all off our coast.
Some Islanders have already noted the appearance of the turbines that have been put up for Vineyard Wind. At night, the blinking red lights are visible from the Island’s south coast in areas like Lucy Vincent Beach. We want to know what our readers think of these impacts — is it significant, a nuisance, or a small price to pay for mitigating a climate crisis? Could there be alternatives that would minimize the impact? We are vested in investigating those options.
It’s not just landowners on the coast. We also know that local fishermen have their concerns. They worry about fishing gear loss and damage; there are also implications to surveying fish near turbines. And while Vineyard Wind and the federal government have set up compensation funds to help commercial fishermen, we know that they might not help our fishermen here locally. And local fishermen are voices that need to be heard.
But while there are valid concerns, misinformation and the purposeful spreading of false information has no place in these ongoing developments. As we have shared in this week’s paper, the New Bedford Light, a nonprofit news organization reporting on the South Coast of Massachusetts, wrote an important story about the spread of misinformation following the death of a young North Atlantic right whale that washed ashore on the Vineyard earlier this year.
As the Light’s reporting shows, some Facebook posts falsely claimed that there was no rope around the whale’s tail, and that a rope was ultimately planted on the animal later. None of that is true, as witnessed by our own reporters. When pressed for a reason why the false information was posted, the group Save Dolphins and Whales New Jersey provided little explanation. Quite the opposite; the group went on the offensive, attacking the Light’s reporter with further false information. Yet the post has been shared online 217 times.
The group is pointing a finger at the offshore wind industry, despite any concrete evidence that wind is playing a role in the deaths of whales and dolphins. The New Jersey group went so far as to claim that pile-driving at the construction site caused the young whale’s death. As the Light reports, there was no pile-driving going on anywhere near at the time of the whale’s death. The misinformation is unfortunate, and not helpful to anyone.
Ultimately, offshore wind will put a significant dent in our region’s carbon emissions. As Vineyard Wind likes to promise, they alone will be able to power 400,000 homes. Environmentalists say that’s the equivalent of taking 325,000 cars off the roads — not an insignificant amount. And in a globe that seems in peril from a climate crisis, wind energy is a must.
But the Vineyard is hosting much of that industry near its shores. Any impacts should be mitigated as best as possible, and that those hit the hardest need to be compensated.
These are large corporations that have made significant promises. The Vineyard can’t be left with a raw deal. And it’s incumbent on all of us to point out the shortcomings.
