Nantucket town officials announced a $10.5 million settlement with wind turbine manufacturer GE Vernova to compensate for losses stemming from the July 13, 2024 failure of a turbine blade on the Vineyard Wind project.

The blade fracture “scattered foam, fiberglass, and other debris along Nantucket’s shores during the height of the summer tourist season,” according to a July 11 announcement from the town. The settlement agreement will fund a “community claims fund” to reimburse for local cleanup costs and business losses, according to the statement.

Those costs can include “clean-up costs and typical business losses, including, for instance, lost rental profits less tax liability that are reasonably attributable to the turbine blade failure,” according to the town. The town will engage an independent third-party administrator to evaluate claims and issue payments.

An investigation attribute the blade failure to a manufacturing defect by manufacturer LM Wind at its plant in Gaspé, Quebec, due to insufficient internal bonding of its materials, according to GE Vernova. After the accident GE Vernova undertook an extensive review of ultrasound imaging of turbine blades and internal inspections using remote controlled crawler drones, and subsequently removed and replace other turbine blades on the project array.

The blade failure led the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to order a lengthy shutdown of work on the 804-megawatt project, dealing a major setback to the Vineyard Wind developers and the U.S. offshore wind industry.

Significantly, the Nantucket settlement document releases Vineyard Wind and “its present or former parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, successors, and assigns” from any further claims over the incident.

In their statement Nantucket officials commended Ge Vernova “for its leadership in reaching this agreement.”

“Offshore wind may bring benefits, but it also carries risks—to ocean health, to historic landscapes, and to the economies of coastal communities like Nantucket, known worldwide as an environmental and cultural treasure,” said Brooke Mohr, a member of the town Select Board and former chair during the summer 2024 crisis. 

Longtime critics of Vineyard Wind criticized the settlement.

 "We are greatly disappointed by the town’s failure to protect the interests of its residents, citizens, businesses and taxpayers by entering into a sweetheart deal with which both Vineyard Wind and GE Vernova walk away scot-free," Amy Disibio of the activist group ACK For Whales told the Nantucket Current.