Initial environmental assessment of Vineyard Wind turbine blade failure released 

Not mentioned in the report is any assessment of the environmental impact on marine life.

Vineyard Wind turbine AW38 with a damaged blade that has caused thousands of pieces of debris to wash ashore on Nantucket since Tuesday

One week after fiberglass and styrofoam debris from Vineyard Wind’s destroyed turbine blade began washing up on Nantucket, the town has released an initial environmental assessment of the incident.

The report states the primary risk from the turbine blade debris is physical injuries to those coming in contact with it on public beaches in shoreline areas. It claims the debris is “inert, non-soluble, stable, and non-toxic,” comparing it to materials that can be found in such common items as textiles, boats, and the aviation industry. While there are no PFAS-containing materials used in the manufacturing of the blade itself, there are more than 200 “aerodynamic add-ons” attached to the root end of the exterior of the blade which contain PTFE – commonly referred to as Teflon – which is categorized as a type of PFAS by the Food & Drug Administration.

There are a total of 240 aerodynamic add-ons on each blade. They are located between 0 and 43 m from the root end. They are in one row; 184 units weigh 45 g and 56 units weigh 20 g. Total weight of the thermoplastic add-ons is 9.4 kg, of which PFAS content is 28.2 g.

The report emphasizes that there is still much left to be determined and evaluated and that the initial assessment will continue to evolve with additional information.

“The report identifies further evaluations concurrent with continued debris recovery efforts to advance the overall Conceptual Site Model initial risk assessment outcomes, including … Expansion of the CSM consistent with standard planning and assessment activities for human health and ecological risk assessments, in terms of potential current and future receptors, exposure routes, and pathways.”

Read the full report by clicking here.

What is not mentioned in the report is any assessment of the environmental impact on marine life, as well as GE Vernova’s material safety data sheets, or MSDSs, for the blade materials. While the MSDSs were available to and used by Arcadis to draft the initial assessment, they were not included as an appendix.

“We hope to receive the MSDS (Wednesday) morning and will be sharing it with our residents as soon as we receive it,” said Florencia Rullo, the town’s communications manager.

The town shared the 11-page document just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night. It was paid for by GE Vernova, which hired Arcadis US, Inc., the engineering and environmental consulting firm, to complete the initial assessment.

Arcadis is the same firm the town of Nantucket hired to develop its Coastal Resilience Plan, as well as another project – a plan to manage the town’s response to erosion along the island’s eastern shoreline at Baxter Road. Arcadis also has a significant offshore wind energy consulting business.

The blade that “folded over” according to Vineyard Wind CEO Klaus Moller during the July 13th failure event was attached to GE Vernova’s Haliade-X 13-megawatt wind turbine, the largest in the world. The blade is 351 feet long and weighs over 57 tons. It consists primarily of fiberglass, semi-rigid foam, and polyester resins, among other substances that will be revealed in GE’s material safety data sheets.

“There are 33 different materials involved in the production of a turbine blade, from the most basic common household adhesives to the more complex industrial materials used to build the blade,” the report states.

With respect to the “aerodynamic add-ons” that contain PTFE, the report explains that “At least 67 of 240 add-ons are visible as attached to the blade, and additional add-ons may be present on parts of the blade that are not currently visible…Of the remaining 173 units, it is not yet possible to confirm how many remain adhered to the outer blade due to not only the folded section of the remaining blade piece. It is possible that some may have fallen from the blade, have landed either on the working platform of the tower or equally into the sea, and/or have already been collected in the debris from the shoreline or by the salvage vessels.”

The report states that Arcadis is coordinating with Resolve Marine, a maritime response and recovery company, on efforts to detach the remaining segment of the affected blade from the main turbine in coordination with Vineyard Wind, the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), and state and local officials.