The island community of Nantucket, Massachusetts is facing renewed controversy over offshore wind projects. This time, local opposition is mounting against SouthCoast Wind, a proposed development which will be installed in the waters surrounding the town, consisting of 149 turbines that are expected to power over one million homes.
The debate follows an earlier incident over the summer at another nearby offshore development, the Vineyard Wind farm, in which a turbine failure led to debris washing up on Nantucket’s shores for weeks. At the time, residents expressed their frustrations with offshore wind projects to town leaders, and are now doing so again, voicing their opposition to SouthCoast Wind during a recent public forum.
“These wind projects are a detriment to our island,” one resident said. “We bear the burden visually and environmentally, and we get none of the benefit of this energy except to pay higher energy rates.”
Despite the local pushback, legal experts told the town that SouthCoast Wind is likely to move forward regardless of their position on the matter. The project falls under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), as attorneys for Nantucket told residents at the meeting that any appeals or litigation that the town engages in with this government agency will not change the timeline or the course of permitting for SouthCoast Wind.
The town’s lawyers recommended working with BOEM to negotiate better terms or compensation for the island, emphasizing that refusing to engage would limit their ability to appeal the agency’s permit approval of the project in the future. BOEM has offered Nantucket $150,000 to support mitigation efforts, but many residents see the sum as inadequate.
“Money is not enough. There isn’t enough money to make up for this,” one attendee at the town meeting said, while another labeled the offered sum as a “joke.”
Nantucket’s Select Board is expected to decide over the next few days whether to accept BOEM’s mitigation offer or seek alternative strategies to address residents’ concerns.