The mysterious collapse of an offshore wind turbine off the coast of Nantucket could serve as a warning for future offshore wind turbine projects, including one planned along the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast.

A 351-foot blade on the Vineyard Wind turbine seemed to spontaneously fold over onto itself, separating from the turbine and tumbling into the ocean in mid-July, scattering fiberglass debris into the water. There was no known storm that caused the destruction and no other external incident that would immediately explain the wreckage.

Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fisherman’s Association posted several pictures and a video of debris washing ashore over a month later as the Biden administration continues to push a TX-LA offshore wind project.

“@VineyardWindUS blade disaster debris field has grown. Now at Montauk and Napeague, Long Island, NY. 74.6 miles away,” she posted.

“Get ready, Montauk,” she says in the video’s opening as she holds up pieces of debris the size of her hand, which she described as “heavy.” It is unclear what the debris she is gathering in the video is made of; however, wind turbine blades are frequently made of fiberglass-reinforced polyester or epoxy.

While the sharp shards of fiberglass could cause injuries to some beachgoers, the epoxy creates the greatest alarm.

BPAs, infamous hormone disruptors, and epichlorohydrin are chemicals in the epoxy that coats most wind turbine blades. Every year, some of these chemicals are shed into the environment through erosion.

Some “33% of that eroded material is BPA, resulting in 45 pounds of PBAs released into the environment, per turbine, per year,” the Douglas County Rural Preservation Association wrote.

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However, American Clean Power, an association of wind and hydroelectric power producers disputes the danger of BPA presented by wind turbines.

Responding to the alleged risks regarding BPA and erosion, the organization wrote, “Wind turbine blades’ protective coatings are non-toxic and contain negligible amounts of BPA, and the blades are specifically designed to have high resistance to weathering.”

The EPA says epichlorohydrin can poison water and have “detrimental effects on the liver, kidneys, central nervous system [of humans].”

Similar concerns exist about the impact it and PFAS — another chemical on some of the blade attachments — could have on native fish stocks that fishermen depend on.

Texas has a large fishing industry, employing roughly 3,500 people and producing about $250 million per year in seafood. Port Arthur is the Lone Star State’s fourth largest fishing port.

However, the Biden administration has announced an effort to build an offshore wind project off the coast of Port Arthur, almost directly on the Texas-Louisiana line. The project, known as GOM WEA Option M, would convert 730,000 aquatic acres into an offshore wind farm, The Dallas Express previously reported.

While the administration has axed some lease sales for the Texas coast, and other projects, like those off the coast of Galveston, have died from a lack of commercial interest, Option M endures.

In an ominous sign for East Texas fishermen, the Department of Interior granted Option M’s owners a bidding credit because of the corporation’s commitment to “establishing and contributing to a fisheries compensatory mitigation fund or contributing to an existing fund to mitigate potential negative impacts to commercial and for-hire recreational fisheries caused by offshore wind energy development in the Gulf of Mexico.”

The worries of Texas fishermen are compounded by evidence that the destruction of just one turbine off the coast of Nantucket has allegedly continued to produce so much environmental pollution in the area.

Brady first posted about the destruction of a Vineyard Wind turbine on July 20.

Her posts followed some videos made by Nantucket resident Mary Chalke. “It is time to shut [Vineyard Wind] down,” Chalke said before later adding, “It is a ticking time bomb.”

As Chalke shot her video, she stood near the beach and pointed out what she said were sheets of fiberglass blown to shore from the wreckage of the wind farm. She quickly pointed out that the beach had recently been reopened to the public despite debris still circulating in the air and water.

She concluded with a condemnation of the project that she says residents were originally told in 2019 was just “experimental.”

Option M is owned by RWE Offshore US Gulf LLC. The company’s largest backers are Qatar Holding (9.1%) and BlackRock (6.3%), according to its webpage.

Despite the recent failure of the Vineyard Wind turbine, the president has stood by the Operation M development project. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proclaims Option M’s alleged merits and notes it “could power 1.3M+ homes every year. This effort supports the Biden administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 while minimizing environmental impacts.”

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