By Kennedy Maize
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday (Jan. 13) declined to hear an appeal by opponents of the Vinyard Wind 1 project off the coast of Nantucket of an April decision by the First Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court in 2023 refused to review a 2023 lower federal court ruling in Boston rejecting local claims that the U.S. Interior Department’s original green light for the 62-turbine, 804-MW project violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
As is the usual case with the high court’s refusal to grant review, the justices said nothing about their decision. The opponents of the windfarm were unable to convince four of the nine judges that an appeal was warranted. The Vinyard Gazette noted, “The Supreme Court gets about 7,000 requests to review cases every year, but only takes up about 100 complaints.”
A group of locals – Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, aka ACK for Whales – argued that the action by Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Management in 2021 violated the law by failing to protect the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and ignored its own regulations. As the group learned of the Supreme Court action, ACK for Whales filed another suit against BOEM, challenging approval of another offshore wind project, New England Wind, located some 24 miles southwest of Nantucket.
The group brought suit in U.S. District Court in May 2023 and lost. ACK for Whales then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In April 2024, the court found that “NMFS and BOEM followed the law in analyzing the right whale’s current status and environmental baseline, the likely effects of the Vineyard Wind project on the right whale, and the efficacy of measures to mitigate those effects. Moreover, the agencies’ analyses rationally support their conclusion that Vineyard Wind will not likely jeopardize the continued existence of the right whale.”
Vineyard Wind LLC is 50% owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and 50% by Spain’s Iberdrola subsidiary Avangrid. Vineyard 1 is located some 15 miles south of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. It began construction in Nov. 2021. The first turbine was installed in Oct. 2023 and the first power began flowing a year ago.
Last July, the Interior Department shut down most construction on the project after a GE Vernova blade on a 13-MW turbine catastrophically destructed, resulting in debris washing up on Nantucket and on the Cape Code mainland. The agency lifted its order last month (Dec. 19). During the hiatus, work was allowed to continue on towers, nacelles, and transmission lines. That work began last August and eight new towers and nacelles have been erected since.
In lifting the stop work order, Interior in an email to the Cape Cod Times said, “After careful evaluation, (the Bureau) has agreed to allow the companies to proceed with installation of these blades as part of an incremental, case-by-case approach.”
In a related development, a Zoom public meeting on Vineyard Wind 1 with Nantucket government leaders and Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, originally set for Jan. 14, has been rescheduled for Feb. 5 at 5 p.m. Details are at the town’s website. The focus is on the turbine blade failure and its aftermath.
It seems that BSEE was not particularly enthusiastic about a public event. When the meeting was scheduled in December, BSEE said questions had to be submitted in writing. Those who initially registered must now register again because the Zoom link changed to reflect the new date. Nantucket Select Board Chairman Brooke Mohr told the Cape Cod Times that the online meeting will not be a “back-and-forth kind of situation.”
Vineyard Wind is the first commercial offshore wind farm in the U.S. Despite industry enthusiasm and lots of support from the Biden administration, offshore wind has been having a hard time getting significant traction across the board.
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