Residents Throw Support Behind BESS Moratorium

MAHOPAC, N.Y. - With two energy-related public hearings on the agenda, the crowd at Town Hall spilled out into the lobby for the Carmel Town Board’s June 19 meeting as more than 200 Carmel and Somers residents packed the house to deliver one message: Stop the proposed Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project by Virginia-based East Point Energy.

While that sentiment was technically beyond the scope of the hearings—which focused on whether the Town Board would impose a six-month moratorium on BESSes (sometimes known as “battery farms”) and another six-month on so-called solar farms, which also use batteries to store energy—it was the root cause of the turnout. Everyone who spoke supported the moratoriums, but many also said they wanted a longer pause or permanent ban on such projects.

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The moratoriums are designed to give the Town Board time to make zoning and code changes in Carmel’s long-awaited master plan that would restrict the size and location of any such systems.

The board will vote on the moratorium at its July 10 meeting and is expected to approve a six-month pause, though some speakers urged the board to make the moratorium at least 12 months.

While similar concerns were voiced about solar farms toward the end of the June 16 meeting, the BESS question dominated the proceedings, with nearly 50 people coming to the podium to urge the town to put the brakes on the East Point proposal, which calls for a 116-megawatt (116 million watts) storage system that would make Mahopac home to one of the largest battery farms on the East Coast. According to Andrew Campanelli, a lawyer representing 50 property owners opposed to the Miller Road project, East Point’s battery farm would be six times bigger than the currently largest BESS in New York State.

“It’s commonly agreed by federal, state, and local governments that there is no safe way to maintain these facilities,” Campanelli said at the meeting while urging the Town Board to approve the moratorium. “The technology is too new and they simply don’t know how to stop them from going on fire.”

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The board left the public comment period open until June 30. Late last week, Supervisor Mike Cazzari said they’d received more than 115 written comments about the project, with the overwhelming majority supporting a moratorium or a permanent ban.

At the meeting, Somers and Mahopac residents spoke about the potential harm the Miller Road BESS would bring. In addition to fire—which many believe would be beyond the capabilities of local volunteer agencies to fight—residents cited contamination of the water supply, radiation, noise, security risks of a largely unmanned facility, and the harm to property values.

Somers resident Scott Maoriello said he was speaking for many at the meeting who had been wanting to put their opposition to the project on the record for months and called a six-month moratorium “way too short.”

“We welcome the opportunity to speak here tonight against any battery energy storage systems being placed in Carmel,” Maoriello said. “We support this moratorium.”

Maoriello said he was “deeply concerned because behind each of these proposed BESS systems is a foreign multibillion-dollar energy company, like East Point Energy out of Virginia owned by Equinor, a multi-billion dollar Norwegian oil company” while the land was controlled by “very wealthy and powerful local property owners.”

“They’re willing to take all of the rewards, and we are forced to assume all of the risks,” he said, proposing a yearlong moratorium instead of the currently proposed six months.

“Government and democracy in general takes time and patience,” he said. “And we want clear, thoughtful, and comprehensive legislation that bans any battery energy storage systems ever being put in our towns.”

Lawyer Bill Coleman came to the podium representing the town of Somers.

“The town of Somers is in favor of the moratorium,” Coleman said. “This type of facility does not belong in Carmel or Somers and a six-month moratorium is a critical first step. This is too serious a matter to move forward without a full understanding of the risks associated with these facilities, and we applaud your efforts to take a breath and thoughtfully consider the best path forward.”

Mahopac resident Kathleen McKenzie called the proposed project “a money and power grab from a predatory foreign oil and gas company, the state of New York, and landowners, at the expense of our health, safety, and wellbeing.”

McKenzie, an RN, said the town needed to be “more transparent” and wanted “no more surprises.”

“I request the town of Carmel create a task force of stakeholders which would also include representation of people who would live next to this impending doom from Mahopac and Somers,” including Somers Supervisor Robert Scorrano and local health officials. “I believe this will be a public health crisis, a nightmare, and I would like all our local health departments and hospitals to weigh in on this moratorium.”

Reached late last week, Cazzari said the board is studying strategies used by other towns in the New York state to limit or ban BESSes and solar farms.

“We found a task force on Long Island that released a draft report with notes and model law for their town and the surrounding communities,” Cazzari said. “The restrictions included nothing within 150 feet of a wetland, nothing in proximity wells, parks, bike paths, streams and tributaries, etc.”

Carmel town historian Alicia Briley—whose roots in the area go back to pre-colonial times—said that while renewable energy is good, the size and location of the East Point BESS would be bad for the environment.

“Everything affects our wildlife whether we realize it or not,” said Briley who used the Canada wildfires as an example.

Among the concerns raised at the podium, fire was the word heard most often. Speakers discussed the challenges of fighting such fires, the potential unwillingness of neighboring volunteer departments to offer mutual aid for lithium-ion fires, the way that fires need to be left to burn, and more.

Mahopac resident Lourdes Valley proposed an 18-month moratorium due to a lack of data about BESSes and said she had more than 25 years of developing battery-powered consumer products.

“I know the risks,” she said. “How we vet these kinds of products is critical. It should be independent of any consultants used by the applicants as their advice to us poses a conflict of interest [in] what’s best for their business plans as opposed to the wellbeing of our community at large.”

Valley said half of the fires at BESS facilities happen within the first two years of operation and noted that East Point fire safety expert Brian Fink had little experience with battery farm fires.

“Mr. Fink claimed [East Point] conducted their own safety testing based on one container,” Valle said. “The sample size of this test was not compared to the total size of the proposed project.”

Valle said Fink said the test showed a BESS fire was “probably similar” to an electric car fire and said it can take up to 36 hours for all the gasses to dissipate with a single car fire.

“For perspective, an electric car battery has up to 50-100 kilowatts,” she said, adding that the 115-megawatt system “would be equivalent to 1,160 electric cars right in our backyards.”

Although no one from East Point Energy spoke at the public hearing, Tyler Cline, vice president of project development, said company representatives were at the meeting and were aware of the opposition to their project.

“East Point Energy attended the Carmel Town Board meeting on June 19 with the intent of listening to the community regarding the proposed moratorium on battery energy storage systems,” Cline said in a written response to questions about the meeting. “We appreciated the concerns raised by residents regarding these types of systems as well as the proposed Union Energy Center project. Similar to the feedback we’ve sought and received previously for this project from local stakeholders, we took note of what speakers had to say, ensuring community input is heard in our ongoing efforts to responsibly develop critical infrastructure that will support energy reliability and affordability for the region at large.”

Asked whether East Point would consider abandoning the project in light of the local opposition, Cline said the company would wait to see what the Town Board decides on July 10.

“Regarding the proposed moratorium on battery energy storage systems, we await the final decision from the Town Board next month and will reassess the next steps for the Union Energy Center project at that point in time,” Cline said. “We remain committed to continued engagement with local stakeholders for all of our projects to ensure delivery of a safe project that provides meaningful benefits to the local community and the region.”

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