NOTHING LASTS FOREVER

For three generations, my family has summered on Boston’s south shore, at the tip of Nantasket’s Peninsula. Both the cottage where my mother’s family spent summers and the near-by one where I spent mine (and have summered since 2003) are located at the tip of this tongue-shaped strip of land called Hull. 

The narrow channel at its tip, where the calm waters of Hull Bay mix with the strong tidal currents of the Atlantic Ocean, is known as “Hull Gut.” Facing Boston Harbor on shore is a pebbly beach faced by pavement that’s a popular site for fishing, sunset viewing, vintage car meet-ups, and more. Some time ago, a spiral-shaped concrete bench was constructed at this scenic spot. A medallion carved into its base recalls the history of “Windmill Point,” so named in the 1820’s for the windmills there that pumped seawater into vats for harvesting salt, subsequently used for packing fish. 

Imagine our local pride when a windmill was constructed and installed at this very spot in 1985. Damaged by a 1997 storm, it was removed and replaced in 2001 by a new wind turbine called “Hull Wind 1,” the largest in the state at that time. This commercial urban turbine was the first of its kind on the East Coast and in all New England. It was constructed in collaboration with the federal Department of Energy Resources and UMASS Amherst’s Renewal Energy Research Laboratory. During its first year of operation, the wind turbine saved Hull over $100,000 in electricity costs; it continued to lower local electric bills until its decommissioning in 2021, when the nonfunctioning windmill was deemed too costly to repair or replace for a variety of reasons. 

For the past 23 years, until a few months ago, “Hull Wind 1” also served as a geographic and sentimental landmark for “Pembertonians” like me. Season after season, my summer would begin in earnest when my car rounded the corner as I entered Pemberton, and the windmill came into view. Over the years, countless photographs of mine featured the windmill, either in the background or featured front and center. Especially at sunset, the windmill served as a dramatic, sentimental, and even romantic feature of our local landscape.

Imagine my shock earlier this month when I was alerted to a Facebook video of this very wind turbine crashing down on the seawall behind the local high school. Not at all an act of nature, the demolition was deliberately planned and executed. No longer functional, the turbine had been identified as a physical liability to the Town of Hull due to its location, deteriorated condition, and likelihood of crashing to the ground just feet away from the public high school at some unknown point in the future. Though its meticulously calibrated crash site was intended to be across the Gut and on an uninhabited stretch of Peddock’s Island, February 17^th’s wind currents took the turbine northeasterly instead. The unintended damage to the nearby seawall as the wind turbine tottered to the ground served as a vivid reminder that nature will have its way despite our best efforts to control it.