General Electric is suing a contractor it says failed to recycle GE customers’ old wind turbine blades.

GE alleges it paid Global Fiberglass Solutions of Texas LLC $16.9 million to provide an environmentally sound end-of-life disposal for about 5,000 blades, but GFS instead stockpiled them with other companies’ used blades.

This was “fraud and deception,” GE states in a Sept. 20 filing in federal court in New York City. (Case 1:23-cv-08346)

It also tarnished GE’s reputation when the situation was publicized, the lawsuit states.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality measured two GFS stockpiles in Sweetwater, Texas, at a combined 450,000 cubic yards during a 2021-2022 investigation of unauthorized storage of industrial solid waste.

Iowa regulators conducted a similar investigation of three stockpiles in that state in 2020.

Global Fiberglass Solutions is based in Washington state. Its LinkedIn page indicates it also has operations in Sweetwater and in Newton, Iowa. The most recent post on its Facebook page is more than three years old. A top-of-the-page banner indicates its website is under construction.

A person who answered the company’s phone number Tuesday said no one was available to speak to NetZero Insider about the lawsuit.

Allegations

GE’s lawsuit makes the following statements and allegations:

• • GFS hosted GE on-site in Texas to demonstrate the process by which it reduced the massive blades to pellets that could be reused in a variety of products.
  • GE contracted with GFS in 2017 and 2018 to remove roughly 5,000 blades from GE customer sites in Iowa and Texas and recycle them.
  • GFS billed GE for its services within 48 hours of completion of removal from each site.
  • GE paid a premium — $3,525 or $3,600 per blade — to what it thought was an environmentally conscious industry leader.
  • GFS repeatedly assured GE that it was actively recycling them.
  • GE heard reports that GFS instead was stockpiling the blades; it visited Sweetwater in late 2018 and saw the GFS facility did not appear to be in full operation.
  • GE on Dec. 18, 2018, demanded GFS rectify this breach of agreement within 10 days.
  • GFS “all but shut down” its operations; GE cannot be certain that any of the roughly 5,000 blades have been recycled.
  • The Iowa Department of Justice in September 2022 threatened civil action against GFS and GE under the state’s solid waste law; three months later, GE agreed to pay another company $5.5 million to recycle the blades stockpiled in Iowa to avoid litigation and prevent further harm to its reputation.

In its lawsuit, GE is seeking return of the money it paid GFS, plus interest; court costs and legal fees; and declaratory relief on indemnification for the third-party expenses it has incurred.

Background

Onshore wind power is one of the largest businesses of General Electric Renewable Energy. One of its lines is repowering or servicing existing wind farms, which can entail replacing turbine blades. As part of its sustainability pledge, GE actively seeks alternatives to landfilling these extremely large and heavy objects.

Aerial images of the main Sweetwater stockpile are striking — thousands of blade sections and nacelle components gleaming in the sunlight, arranged in piles with aisles between them.

Texas Monthly published a report in August 2023 on local frustration with the situation. Neighbors worry the site is a breeding ground for rattlesnakes and mosquitoes; community leaders fear the company will never remove the blades.

The report quotes the managing director of GFS saying the company is ramping up to shred the blades into pieces the size of coarse sand and has found a buyer for the material. He said the heaps of blades would be gone from Sweetwater by late spring 2024.

He declined to discuss the situation in Iowa.