Nantucket Current | Climate Change and Nantucket Part 3: In Search of …

Climate change is already affecting Nantucket. From droughts to bark beetle infestations, the signs are clear. But what can a small island do about such a big problem?

For some it starts with awareness.

“A more aware and engaged community will help us in the long run,” said Emily Molden, executive director of the Nantucket Land and Water Council. “We don't want members of our community walking around blind and not knowing what's going on.”

“We somehow forget that when we are dealing with conservation, we are also dealing with people,” adds Sarah Bois, research and education director at the Linda Loring Nature Foundation.

Bois co-teaches a coastal ecology course with Jen Karberg, director of research and partnerships at the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, and also regularly speaks to classes of island students about climate change.

“We try to reach many different audiences,” she said.

The most prominent projects tend to focus on coastal resilience, but there are many other efforts as well. Some local conservation groups are working hard to eradicate invasive species that are spreading with a warming climate and to strengthen fragile local ecosystems like wetlands and sand grasslands. Others are pushing for changes to local rules and ordinances that could help Nantucket adapt. For example, the Conservation Commission recently voted to change local wetland regulations, requiring that pools be designed to avoid contact with floodwaters so that the toxic chemicals in pool water don't mix with the ocean.

Such changes are controversial. They restrict landowners' property rights and prevent them from using their land as they see fit. For some, this is a perfect example of government overreach. For others, it is a necessary step on a long road to preparation.

“It's really about taking a short-term versus a long-term perspective and figuring out as a community what we want to do in advance to prepare for scenarios that could happen a decade or two from now,” Molden said. “Our community and our island are definitely going to be faced with some difficult questions.”

Even when changes like those proposed by the Nature Conservation Commission – or the ban on single-use plastics recently passed by the Citizens' Assembly – come into force, they are sometimes nearly impossible to enforce.

“Enforcement is one of the biggest challenges facing the city,” Molden admitted.

Almost everyone interviewed for this article agreed.

Meanwhile, the town has other plans beyond regulations. Last year, it unveiled Nantucket's first municipal solar project, a 232-panel installation at Surfside's wastewater treatment plant that will save 106 tons of local greenhouse gas emissions each year.

However, solar energy simply cannot compete with offshore wind energy in terms of wattage.

Vineyard Wind alone will generate over 800 megawatts of electricity – more than 7,600 times more than the Surfside wastewater treatment plant solar project. In terms of sheer scale, no local project comes close to Vineyard Wind. The wind farm consists of 62 wind turbines 15 miles southwest of the island and is expected to save more than 1.6 million tons of carbon emissions annually. And it is just the first of many offshore wind farms planned in the waters near Nantucket – as part of Massachusetts and the Biden administration's ambitious climate agenda.

That is, if it ever becomes fully functional.

After a blade on one of Vineyard Wind's turbines fell off on July 13, sending large amounts of debris washing up on Nantucket's beaches, the federal government halted the project. There is no guarantee it will ever again produce all the energy it was designed to. The blade's demolition and the associated potential health risks to the island community, not to mention the economic fallout from beach closures and potential dangers to marine life, have reignited long-simmering opposition to offshore wind on the island.

Because the project is in federal waters, Nantucket officials had no regulatory authority to approve or deny Vineyard Wind — except for a small section of the undersea cable that runs through the island's waters and was approved by the Conservation Commission. But that hasn't stopped islanders from protesting loudly in the weeks since the blade failure.

Local nonprofit ACK For Whales argues that the sonar mapping and pile driving associated with the projects, as well as the many vessels servicing offshore wind farms like Vineyard Wind, will kill endangered right whales, a cost that no amount of clean energy can offset. Several lawsuits against Vineyard Wind funded by the organization have been dismissed, but that has not silenced its opposition, and ACK For Whales has vowed to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Many renewable energy advocates say there is no factual basis for their claims, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has repeatedly stated that there is no known link between offshore wind and whale deaths. Yet the Vineyard Wind incident has increased opposition to offshore wind on the island, prompting many to question the turbines themselves, as well as the potential for catastrophic operational failures given the sheer number—more than 1,400 turbines—planned in the waters southwest of Nantucket. It's not the first time a blade has come loose from an offshore wind turbine, and many locals are sure it won't be the last. Suddenly, to many on Nantucket, a project marketed as an environmentally conscious solution to climate change seems like a looming environmental disaster.

Still, no amount of renewable energy will be enough to protect Nantucket from the effects of climate change. No matter how effective local projects are, they cannot solve a global problem.

“We just have to be ready,” Molden said.