Surf school owner skeptical about wind farm reimbursement

Promises from Vineyard Wind blade-manufactuer General Electric to compensate island business owners affected by the blade failure last month are starting to appear empty in the eyes of Gaven Norton.

"I think it's a false promise," said Norton, who runs ACK Surf School on the south shore.

"I've reached out to people and just heard, 'Yeah, we'll figure this out.' It's been a month. I don't expect anything to get done in a month, these are uncharted territories. But it doesn't seem like anybody's in a huge rush," he said.

Norton had to cancel all his surfing lessons for two days during one of the busiest weeks of the summer last month because floating fiberglass and Styrofoam debris from the broken blade closed all south shore beaches to swimming.

Different factors can cancel a day of lessons, he said. It's generally assumed that a few days will be lost per season to bad weather or shark sightings, for example.

Floating fiberglass, and people's fear of the beach because of it, however, was a first.

"This was not one that I anticipated happening," Norton said.

That was the week of July 13. Since then, Vineyard Wind has maintained that a renewable energy subsidiary of General Electric, GE Vernova, is responsible for the blade failure and damages caused by it, because it manufactured and installed the parts that failed during testing.

The company has pledged to set up a system for island businesses to make claims for financial damage, but it has not been established yet.

"Vineyard Wind is pointing fingers at GE, and GE is pointing fingers at Vineyard Wind. No one really wants to take any blame for it, nobody really wants to answer any questions," Norton said.

The town is currently pursuing compensation from GE for dealing with the debris. Town officials would not comment on that, however, because discussions are ongoing, they said. It is not clear if the restitution would include payouts for private businesses.

Town officials are also renegotiating parts of the deal they signed with the wind farm four years ago. The deal, once called the Good Neighbor Agreement, has now been renamed the Community Benefit Agreement.

Select Board Chair Brooke Mohr said that's because it is the more widely accepted designation for deals of that kind made by other municipalities.

“Discussions about a new approach to the Community Benefit Agreement and, separately, the resolution of potential claims related to the blade failure, have been productive and active," said Greg Werkeiser, the town's legal counsel for offshore wind. 

"Town leadership has been intensely focused on this work with the aim of getting it right as well as getting it done," he said. 

Norton isn't holding his breath waiting for the money to come.

"I don't really have enough time to worry about it right now, in the peak of the season. Maybe they'll get back to me at some point. It's something I'll look into when I crunch numbers. But I'm just trying to act like it's not going to bother us and keep it going," Norton said.

Business was back in full swing a couple days after the incident, he said.

"It's not like we're sitting here twiddling our thumbs with no business. I don't think it's killing us by any means. But having to cancel for an entire day in July is obviously a down compared to normal," he said.