Choose Granite Countertops in Martha's Vineyard, MA for Elegance and Durability

The North Atlantic right whale found dead off Martha's Vineyard in January was entangled in a rope from Maine lobster gear, federal officials said Tuesday.

NOAA Fisheries determined that the rope's markings, including the purple zip ties connected to it, were consistent with the ropes used in Maine water traps. Environmentalists, commercial fishermen and the federal government have been in court for years about laws designed to protect the endangered whales from entanglement.

The whale, recorded as Catalog #5120, was found near Joseph Sylvia State Beach in Edgartown with a rope wrapped around her tail Jan. 30. The rope and the whale's position deterred NOAA Fisheries from identifying the whale initially, but three days later, the whale was determined to be a 3-year-old female.

A preliminary necropsy confirmed "chronic entanglement," determining the rope had been tangled in her flukes for at least 17 months. As she grew, the rope became further embedded in her tail and caused severe body deterioration, according to NOAA Fisheries.

The full necropsy results, including an exact cause of death, were still pending as of Tuesday.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries says the U.S. is experiencing an uptick in whale strandings on the Atlantic, with nearly two dozen whales winding up dead on beaches since Dec. 1, 2022.

The whale is believed to have been the eighth in her family to have been entangled in fishing gear, the New England Aquarium said in a release earlier this month.

The first time Catalog #5120 was spotted with the rope wrapped around her tail was in August 2022 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canada. In January and February of last year, researchers tried to untangle the cord off the coast of Cape Cod.

Six months later, the whale was seen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence again, and researchers reported a decline in body condition due to the rope becoming more tightly wrapped around her tail.

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North Atlantic right whales are nearing extinction, according to NOAA Fisheries. As of early February, there were only about 360 left, with less than 70 reproductive females.

The species' main threats are fishing gear and vessel strikes, the agency said.

"The case of Catalog #5120, who was entangled for at least 17 months as the gear became more embedded into her flukes as she grew, is another example of why prevention of entanglements needs to be prioritized," Philip Hamilton, a senior scientist in the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium, said in a statement. "Without on-demand fishing gear being implemented throughout the right whale’s range in U.S. and Canadian waters in an expedited fashion and with significant funding support, entanglements will continue to threaten the survival of this critically endangered species.

NOAA Fisheries advises anyone who finds an injured or stranded whale, dead or alive, to stay at least 150 feet away. They should report the animal to The Greater Atlantic Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline at 866-755-6622 or the Southeast Marine Mammal Stranding Hotline at 877-942-5343.

This week, a coalition of environmental groups has sued the federal government to try to force the finalization of ship speed rules that the groups say are critically important to save the North Atlantic right whale by requiring vessels off the East Coast to slow down more often.

The environmental groups filed in federal court Tuesday with a request to allow a paused lawsuit about the ship speed rules to go forward. Members of the groups have criticized the federal government for delays in releasing the final rules and said they hope to force a deadline via their lawsuit.

“The federal government has known for years that right whales urgently require expanded vessel strike protections, yet has repeatedly kicked the can down the road,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, one of the groups involved in the lawsuit.

NOAA announced the proposed ship speed rules in summer 2022. The rules would expand slow zones off the East Coast that require mariners to slow down. They would also require more vessels to comply with those rules.

NOAA is still working on finalizing the rules, said Andrea Gomez, a spokesperson for the agency. Gomez said the agency can't comment on the lawsuit itself.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

North Atlantic right whale on Martha’s Vineyard had a chronic entanglement and was seen in poor health before its death. Experts are examining the rope and other samples collected from the whale.

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New England/Mid-Atlantic

Deceased female North Atlantic right whale. Credit: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute/Michael Moore. Taken under NOAA Permit # 24359.

Update: Rope Removed from North Atlantic Right Whale #5120 Determined to be from Maine

Based upon our analysis of the gear, including the purple markings on the rope recovered from North Atlantic right whale #5120, NOAA Fisheries has concluded that the rope is consistent with the rope used in Maine state water trap/pot buoy lines. We have been in consultation with our New England state resource management partners, and they have viewed the gear.

As of today, the full necropsy results are still pending. The NOAA Office of Law Enforcement investigation remains open.

On January 28, 2024, NOAA Fisheries was notified of a deceased female North Atlantic right whale near Joseph Sylvia State Beach on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. We worked closely with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Stranding Network partners, and local responders to recover the carcass and conduct a necropsy.

Preliminary observations indicated the presence of rope entangled near the whale’s tail. State law enforcement officials collected some of the rope and turned it over to NOAA’s Office Law Enforcement. It is now being examined by gear experts.

Whale Identified as #5120

Last week, scientists at the New England Aquarium's Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life reviewed several images of the dead North Atlantic right whale. They matched it to whale #5120 in the right whale catalog based on clear matching features, such as callosity patterns and markings. This right whale, the only known calf of Squilla (#3720), was born during the 2021 calving season.

Necropsy Confirms Chronic Entanglement

A stranding response team completed the necropsy of North Atlantic right whale #5120 on February 1, 2024. From the necropsy, experts confirmed a chronic entanglement, with rope deeply embedded in the tail, and thin body condition. The necropsy showed no evidence of blunt force trauma. Cause of death is pending further histological and diagnostic testing of collected samples, which can take weeks to complete. We will share more information as it is available.

Large whale experts at the International Fund for Animal Welfare led the necropsy, with the assistance of more than 20 biologists from:

Previous Entanglements

Aerial survey teams had previously seen right whale #5120 several times with entanglements, including August 2022 and January 2023.

Whale #5120 was last seen in June 2023 by Northeast Fisheries Science Center aerial observers, 60 miles northeast of Shippagan, New Brunswick. She was feeding with other whales. Her overall condition had declined and the wounds from the wraps of rope at the peduncle appeared to be more severe. No trailing line or buoys were seen.

Studies suggest that more than 85 percent of North Atlantic right whales have been entangled at least once. About 60 percent have been entangled multiple times. Entangling rope can cut into a whale’s body, cause serious injuries, and result in infections and mortality. Even if gear is shed or removed through disentanglement efforts, the time spent entangled can severely stress a whale, weaken it, and prevent it from feeding. It can sap the energy it needs to swim, feed, and reproduce.

Electricity from the country’s first large-scale offshore wind project is officially flowing into Massachusetts and helping to power the New England grid.

The Vineyard Wind project achieved “first power” late Tuesday when one operating turbine near Martha’s Vineyard delivered approximately five megawatts of electricity to the grid. The company said it expects to have five turbines operating at full capacity in early 2024.

The moment marks a major milestone for the project and the country at large, which has long struggled to build offshore wind. It also comes amid great economic turmoil and uncertainty for the industry, making the launch of the utility-scale project all the more significant.

As one industry observer, Amy Boyd Rabin of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, recently put it, getting to the point where big offshore wind projects are generating power on the East Coast “was not inevitable” and should be celebrated “as a very big deal.”

“This truly is a milestone for offshore wind and the entire renewable industry in North America. For the first time we have power flowing to the American consumers from a commercial-scale wind project, which marks the dawn of a new era for American renewables and the green transition,” said Tim Evans of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which is co-developing the project with Avangrid.

Vineyard Wind was supposed to have five turbines sending power to the grid by the end of 2023. Instead, they announced first power with just one turbine fully operational, and a few days late. Project leaders chalked up the delay to a bit of bad weather, some extra precautions and a steep learning curve.

“As the first-in-the-nation project, there's a standard of care we wanted to meet. There was testing. There were issues that had to get resolved,” said Ken Kimmell, chief development officer for Avangrid. Kimmell said it didn't matter if the power started in the 2023 calendar year or a few days later: "The important thing is it happened and we're now on a path to operating this facility.”

The Vineyard Wind 1 project, as it's officially known, is still under construction. Once it’s finished sometime in 2024, it will consist of 62 turbines spaced about a mile apart and rising more than 800 feet out of the water. The project will generate up to 800 megawatts of power, or about enough electricity for 400,000 homes in Massachusetts.

Another smaller project near Long Island, South Fork Wind, also began producing electricity in early December. When that project is complete, its 12 turbines will generate about 132 megawatts of power.

It’s hard to overstate what the commissioning of Vineyard Wind and South Fork Wind represent for the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry. Prior to these projects, the country had a total of seven turbines in the water — five near Rhode Island and two near Virginia. Together, they generate a paltry 42 megawatts, which is far less than the average natural gas power plant.

"We’ve arrived at a watershed moment for climate action in the U.S., and a dawn for the American offshore wind industry," wrote Avangrid CEO Pedro Azagra. "2023 was a historic year defined by steel in the water and people at work. Today, we begin a new chapter and welcome 2024 by delivering the first clean offshore wind power to the grid in Massachusetts."

Still, even with the addition of Vineyard Wind and South Fork Wind, the country has a long way to go to reach President Joe Biden’s goal of getting 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind power flowing into the grid by 2030. Meeting this target, the administration says, will provide clean electricity for 10 million homes, avoid 78 million metric tons of planet-warming emissions and create thousands of jobs.

So far, states on the East Coast have led the effort to build a U.S. offshore wind industry in order to meet their own clean energy and climate goals. But while they have collectively committed to procuring more than 30,000 megawatts of wind power — with the largest promises coming from New Jersey (11,000 megawatts), New York (9,000 megawatts) and Massachusetts (5,600 megawatts) — the amount of power actually in the permitting or construction pipeline is much smaller. And over the last few months, global economic problems have caused several developers to back out of project contracts or cancel projects all together.

“No one has said that building up this industry was going to be easy. And it turns out that it's not,” Rebecca Tepper, Massachusetts’ top energy official, said at a recent conference about offshore wind. “Despite the challenges that we face, we are confident that we will have a vibrant offshore wind industry off the coast of Massachusetts … And today, we see the promise of that industry in the Vineyard Wind Project.”

Vineyard Wind may be Massachusetts’ first operating offshore wind project, but it’s not the state’s first attempt to build one. In the early 2000s, a company called Cape Wind proposed building a 450 megawatt wind farm about five miles south of Cape Cod. Almost immediately, the project faced public opposition, including from notable politicians like the late U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. While many worried the project would harm the sensitive Nantucket Sound ecosystem, others simply didn’t want to see the turbines from the beach.

As the Cape Wind project stalled, and eventually fizzled, so too did talk of a big offshore wind industry in Massachusetts and the country.

“I remember talking to developers after Cape Wind and thinking about whether this industry would ever get off the ground,” Tepper said. “Well, this project — [Vineyard Wind] — is proof that it’s off the ground and in the water.”

That’s not to say things have always been smooth sailing for Vineyard Wind.

After winning Massachusetts’ first round of offshore wind project bids in 2018, Vineyard Wind — a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners — entered the long, and at times bumpy, federal permitting process.

The review was supposed to take two years, but in 2019, the Trump administration, which was hostile toward offshore wind, unexpectedly hit the pause button. The delay cost millions, threatened to upend the project’s tight timeline, and once again, raised questions about whether the U.S. could actually build a robust offshore wind industry.

Around the same time, fishermen along the East Coast began to more strongly oppose offshore wind development. Many worried that the turbines would alter the ocean ecosystem and threaten their already-tenuous industry.

With the election of Biden in 2020, things began looking up for Vineyard Wind and the dozen or so other proposed projects in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions. The administration resumed Vineyard Wind’s permitting process shortly after taking office, and committed to the 2030 goal of 30,000 megawatts.

In May 2021, Vineyard Wind 1 became the first U.S. project to get full federal approval. A few months later, the project secured financing and began onshore construction. Offshore construction, including the laborious process of laying miles of subsea electrical cables from the project site to Covell’s Beach on Cape Cod, began in 2022. The work to install the remaining 57 turbines will continue into 2024.

“Community is the antidote to despair.” —Noelle Damico

The League of Women Voters of Martha’s Vineyard membership tea honoring longtime member Leigh Smith was on Saturday, Sept. 23, at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. The weather was frightful. Heavy winds and torrential rains threatened to dampen attendance. Members placed reminder calls, and made plans to carpool — not unlike helping voters get to the polls. Some roads on the Island require high clearance, powerful engines, and four-wheel drive. Alongside the jack, blanket, and shovel, we keep a stool to help the vertically challenged get in and out.

The lounge at the museum, also known as the Morgan Learning Center, was warm, well-lit, and filled with beautifully decorated tables complete with floral centerpieces. Hot pots of coffee and tea and platters of cookies sat under windows without views, because of the heavy rain.

Admirers, colleagues, friends, and family of Leigh Smith filled the chairs. Leigh has been a member for 70-plus years. Leigh, enthroned in a seat of honor, presided.

Elizabeth Foster-Nolan, president of the Massachusetts League of Women Voters (LWV), was in the room. It can be easy to forget that voting isn’t an obligation, but an opportunity to participate.

The LWV was founded in 1920 to engage women in the voting process across party lines — help register voters, provide voter information, and advocate for voting rights.

In the 1930s, Tisbury women created an association. Meetings were held at the town hall. Dues were 25 cents. Their bylaws held, “Men are not permitted to attend the meetings, except in the capacity of speakers.” Some of the ground rules included that candidates for public office might address the meetings of the association, but no candidate might be permitted to hear his or her opponent speak. “Notices of the meetings shall be published In the local newspaper one week in advance of the meeting, or in emergency, by postal card or by telephone.”

The duties of members are to render valuable service by keeping pace with advanced thought on public questions, and to meet responsibilities that will give promise of becoming strong factors for human betterment through government.

Members identified themselves by first and last name, instead of the customary Mrs. followed by their husband’s last name.

Deborah Medders’ remarks opened the tea. Leigh first got involved with LWV at Smith College, where she was in the class of 1949, through her classmate and friend Lucy Wilson Benson. Lucy went on to become head of LWV in Amherst in 1957; head of LWV for the state of Massachusetts in 1961, and then president of LWV, U.S., in 1968.

​Leigh supported Lucy’s idea to have men become members of the LWV in 1974. She has been an active member of the Martha’s Vineyard League since she and her husband, Procter, became year-round residents of Tisbury in 1987.

Before their move to the Vineyard, Leigh and Proctor’s family lived in Montclair, N.J., where she was active in the local league. The family lived in a house that was once the home of Lucy Stone, who purchased it in 1840.

Lucy Stone, born in 1818 in West Brookfield, was an ‎abolitionist, ‎suffragist‎, ‎and women’s rights advocate, and helped establish the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA). She was the first woman to earn a college degree in Massachusetts, the first to keep her maiden name after getting married, and the first to speak about women’s rights full-time. Lucy’s daughter, Alice Stone Blackwell, lived in Chilmark in the 1930s.

​Leigh said she has always had a great interest in the women’s suffragette movement, especially Lucy Stone and Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, and the subsequent right for women to vote.

​Leigh feels the right to vote is one of our most important liberties. To this day, she continues to learn about state policies and legislation.

​Leigh tirelessly attended meetings and activities hosted by the league, participating in our local League Scholarship Program awarded annually to a Vineyard student.

She exemplifies what Eleanor Roosevelt said about LWV members in 1953: “I have always found that the best workers are graduates of the League of Women Voters. The group provides an opportunity to learn to organize and do research work. Members learn how to find out what they want to know on a wide variety of subjects. They study both sides of questions very impartially, and, while they never back individuals in politics, they do work for certain measures that they believe in, and that is what makes them valuable when they come into a political party.”

“Leigh handwrote lovely, personal letters to every person who donated to the league. She felt the old-fashioned handwritten note was far superior to the very same words typed on a computer,” Judy Crawford said. I agree.

“Leigh was so well-informed about so much. When anything crossed her desk that she thought I, or anyone else, could use to move a project forward, she would let us know about it,” Crawford says. “I usually received two or three newspaper articles a month, either mailed to me or hand-delivered by her daughter, Pam. The margins were covered with notes about the importance of this information. We should all be as bright and interested in our world as Leigh is at her age! I have such admiration for her.”

Leigh may be slowing down, but her living legacy to us has set a standard to which we all can aspire.

A hearty thanks and well done to co-moderators Deborah Medders and Judy Crawford; to the rest of the committee, Kristi Strahler, Beatrice Phear, Marie Araujo, and Dr. Lorna Andrade; and to the museum for hosting the event, and historian Bow Van Riper. I would like to remind everyone to encourage students to apply for the LWV Leigh Smith Scholarship.

To learn more about the League of Women Voters of Martha’s Vineyard, visit leagueofwomenvotersmv.org. The next meeting is Saturday, Oct. 7, at 9 am via Zoom.

The high winds and surf from Monday’s storm exacted a heavy toll on the Vineyard’s south shore, tearing several new breaches, eroding dunes and creating a sinkhole on Atlantic Drive in Edgartown.

The storm hit much of New England throughout the day, canceling almost all of the ferries and bringing wind gusts of more than 50 mph on the Vineyard. Eversource reported power outages throughout Monday in Chilmark, Tisbury, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown, and several towns experienced flooding.

But the damage along the Island’s southern beaches, caused by strong southerly winds and surging swells, was the most lasting, necessitating cleanups throughout the week and beyond.

“It wasn’t a named storm and [yet] it was the most significant damage we’ve had in a number of years,” said Edgartown town administrator James Hagerty.

The most immediate concern was the large sinkhole near the Winnetu path in the middle of Atlantic Drive in Edgartown, the road that runs parallel to South Beach. Waves crested the dunes of the beach, flowing onto the road and into the nearby low-lying areas, causing an approximately 15-foot wide hole to open near the edge of the roadway.

The town shut down the road Monday and it remained closed this week.

“It’s not going to be cheap to fix,” Mr. Hagerty said Tuesday morning. “We don’t know if we’ll need an engineer.”

Monday’s storm was different from a northeaster, the typical storm for New England in the winter. Instead of winds coming from the northeast, where the Island has more of a buffer, they came from the south, causing a direct hit along the unprotected sandy shoreline.

The National Weather Service said one of its buoys about 50 miles south of Nantucket recorded a 38-foot wave Monday — about a foot higher than Fenway Park’s famed “Green Monster.” Another buoy a little more than 20 miles southwest of the Vineyard recorded waves of just shy of 30 feet.

The Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory, an Edgartown-based observatory run by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, measured waves as tall as about 24 feet off South Beach.

The strong storm caused the ocean to break through several areas on the south shore. Breaches were reported on Norton Point in Edgartown, Long Point in West Tisbury and Lucy Vincent Beach in Chilmark.

On Chappaquiddick, the Trustees of Reservations said there was some severe erosion, though it wasn’t as bad as originally feared. Wasque took the biggest hit.

“There is literally no beach left because of the breach, so waves were eating away at the coast bluffs there,” said Mary Dettloff, a spokesperson for the Trustees.

Leland Beach and Cape Pogue also had severe damage, and Chappy beaches remained closed, according to the Trustees. A full assessment of Long Point hadn’t been conducted yet, but the ocean washed into Long Cove and waves were tearing away at the coastal dunes.

The strong winds and huge waves ate away large chunks at Lucy Vincent Beach, exposing rocks and hard clay, and potentially speeding up retreat schedules for homes now inching closer to the edge.

“We probably lost about 13 feet of beachfront,” said Martina Mastromonaco, the Chilmark beach superintendent. “It’s always changing, but we haven’t seen this much change in one storm in a long time.”

Ms. Mastromonaco guessed southerly winds and the considerable surf made the storm so destructive, with the ocean washing over in multiple places into the nearby ponds.

Clarissa Allen, a Chilmark beach committee member whose property overlooks the area, got a first-hand look at the damage.

“The ocean was pouring into the pond and it has risen significantly east of the cliff,” she said.

The beach could eventually resettle, but Lucy may have fewer places to place a beach blanket come summer.

“When you take a big hit like this, you lose a lot of beach to sit on,” Ms. Mastromonaco said.

A bench at the beach and other equipment are still missing, and several nearby homeowners lost stairs. Beachgoers throughout the week went out to take a look at the damage. Ms. Mastromonaco said many were devastated by the loss, and the fear that eventually the bluff at Lucy Vincent could become an island.

“I know you can’t stop it,” Ms. Mastromonaco said. “When the cliffs become an island, hopefully I’m retired.”

Squibnocket Beach also took a beating, wiping out sand to the edge of the parking lot pavement.

“It took away the sand that was there and now the parking lot just drops down,” Ms. Mastromonaco said.

Cleanup efforts in the towns are ongoing, and the Vineyard Conservation Society’s Beach BeFrienders group has called on people to help cleanup the debris that washed up.

In Edgartown, the parks department asked for a $10,000 reserve fund transfer to help with the cleanup around South Beach.

Mr. Hagerty said that cleanup was the first priority before looking into next steps. Edgartown restored some 400 feet of coastal dune at South Beach and Norton Point last year after a series of storms in 2018 accelerated the erosion at South Beach. That project was partially paid for with a $240,000 state grant.

Other parts of the Island weren’t hit as hard. Oak Bluffs fire chief Nelson Wirtz said several low-lying areas in town, including near the harbor, seawall and the hospital, had been flooded, and Five Corners in Vineyard Haven was inundated with water. But little damage was reported after the storm receded.

Mr. Wirtz leads the Dukes County Emergency Management Association and said power outages were fixed relatively quickly and the need never arose to open a shelter.

“We’re pretty much unscathed,” Mr. Wirtz said.