Ever since an enormous fireplace tore by way of one of many world’s largest battery storage amenities in January, cleanup crews have been unable to securely entry parts of the constructing that burned in rural Monterey County.
The threat of reigniting a fireplace has been too excessive, stopping crews from beginning the prolonged, harmful elimination of tens of hundreds of lithium-ion batteries.
Now, that course of might quickly start.
The U.S. Environmental Safety Company introduced this week that it had reached an settlement relating to the battery elimination with Texas-based Vistra Corp., which owns the battery vitality storage system in Moss Touchdown that caught fireplace.
The 75-page settlement, signed July 17, requires Vistra to submit detailed work plans to the EPA on all elements of battery elimination and to get the federal government’s approval earlier than it proceeds.
“Vistra will conduct and pay for the battery elimination and disposal course of beneath EPA’s oversight,” Kazami Brockman, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator, mentioned throughout a Monterey County information briefing Wednesday. “If the settlement is just not carried out to EPA’s satisfaction, EPA does have the authority to take over the cleanup and invoice Vistra for the price.”
Brockman added, “We anticipate that this work will proceed for over a 12 months as a result of technical complexity in addition to the security measures being put in place to guard the employees and the group.”
In an electronic mail Wednesday night time, Meranda Cohn, a Vistra spokeswoman, mentioned “battery elimination couldn’t happen till this settlement was in place.”
The Moss Touchdown fireplace started Jan. 16. It smoldered for a number of days, spewing poisonous fuel into the air and prompting the evacuation of about 1,500 individuals. Firefighters let it burn, citing the hazards of dousing lithium-ion battery fires with water, which may trigger harmful chemical reactions.
The hearth ignited inside a former turbine constructing that contained a 300-megawatt system made up of about 4,500 cupboards, with every containing 22 particular person battery modules, in line with Vistra.
Such battery programs retailer extra vitality generated in the course of the day and launch it into the ability grid throughout instances of excessive demand, together with night hours. These amenities are seen as important for stabilizing the state’s electrical grid and advancing the transition to cleaner vitality as a result of they will retailer photo voltaic and wind energy to make use of when the solar isn’t shining and generators aren’t turning.
However the Vistra fireplace additionally has uncovered the hazards inherent with large-scale battery storage, prompting state and federal regulators to hunt stronger security protocols.
Of the 99,000 particular person LG battery modules within the constructing, about 54,450 burned, in line with Vistra.
On Feb. 18, the fireplace reignited and burned for a number of hours. Vistra wrote on its web site that “extra cases of smoke and flare-ups are a chance given the character of this example and the injury to the batteries.”
The broken constructing — crammed with burned and unaffected lithium-ion batteries — stays unstable, which has each slowed and complex the cleanup.
“The problem right here is there are batteries in varied states of cost, nonetheless having the ability to maintain cost, all the best way to utterly consumed,” Brockman mentioned.
Over the past six months, crews have eliminated fireplace particles containing asbestos and disconnected safely accessible batteries to cut back the danger of reignition, in line with the EPA.
A significant fireplace erupted on the Moss Touchdown energy plant on Jan.16, 2025.
(KSBW through Related Press)
Some parts of the constructing have been “utterly inaccessible,” Ramon Albizu, the EPA’s lead on-scene coordinator, mentioned in an interview Thursday. He added that the 99,000 modules within the constructing suffered various levels of harm.
“We have to fastidiously, surgically demolish the constructing to have the ability to get to all of the modules,” Albizu mentioned. “That requires lots of planning.”
For the reason that fireplace, the EPA, Vistra and different regulatory businesses have created greater than 30 work plans associated to the demolition and battery elimination, he mentioned. Work to stabilize the constructing ought to start by the top of the month, he added.
The Moss Touchdown fireplace ignited 9 days after the beginning of the lethal Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County. The EPA, beneath strain from the Trump administration to work shortly in Southern California, eliminated about 300 tons of hazardous family particles — together with greater than 1,000 lithium-ion batteries — from the large burn zones in Altadena and Pacific Palisades inside 28 days.
Albizu mentioned the battery elimination in Moss Touchdown differs tremendously from the elimination of smaller batteries in Southern California, a lot of which got here from electrical automobiles. Within the Vistra constructing, every of the 99,000 batteries, he mentioned, is about 4 toes lengthy and weighs greater than 200 kilos.
“It’s one thing that’s unprecedented,” Albizu mentioned of the battery plant fireplace.
As soon as every battery is eliminated, its remaining vitality can be transferred to a different supply, in line with the EPA. If the batteries are too broken for that to be accomplished, crews will discharge them by way of brining, throughout which they’re submerged in a water-and-salt answer.
The batteries then can be transported off-site for disposal, David Yeager, director of undertaking improvement for Vistra, mentioned in the course of the Monterey County information briefing Wednesday.
In an announcement to The Instances on Thursday, Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church, whose district contains Moss Touchdown, mentioned he was “disenchanted it has taken this lengthy to come back to a degree the place cleanup can start, however security should be a precedence.”
In accordance with Vistra, the reason for the blaze “stays unknown” and continues to be beneath investigation by the corporate. The California Public Utilities Fee additionally has an ongoing investigation.
The Vistra fireplace rocked California’s clear vitality trade and its plans for extra battery crops, which state leaders are aggressively pursuing.
In an op-ed for the Wall Avenue Journal printed Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted California’s transition to renewable vitality, writing that it was “time for America to comply with California’s lead.”
He wrote that the flexibility to retailer clear electrical energy was “a key issue” in hitting clear vitality targets and that, during the last six years, the state has added 15,000 megawatts of battery storage capability, sufficient to fulfill 1 / 4 of peak electrical energy demand.
“Extra is on the best way,” Newsom wrote, “together with the most important battery undertaking on this planet, now being permitted in Fresno County by way of California’s new fast-track allowing course of.”
Together with extra security laws for battery storage, the blaze has prompted requires extra native management over the place storage websites are situated.
In a survey of close by residents performed by the Monterey and Santa Cruz counties’ well being departments, 83% of respondents mentioned they skilled not less than one symptom — mostly complications, sore throats and coughing — shortly after the fireplace. Almost 1 / 4 of respondents mentioned that they had bother respiratory, and 39% reported having a metallic style of their mouth.
The survey, performed in February and March, polled 1,539 individuals who lived or labored within the area on the time of the fireplace.
Knut Johnson, an lawyer with the legislation agency Singleton Schreiber, mentioned a whole bunch of close by residents have joined a lawsuit in opposition to Vistra, LG Vitality Answer and Pacific Fuel & Electrical, accusing the businesses of failing to take care of satisfactory fireplace security programs.
Johnson mentioned plaintiffs are “very nervous” concerning the batteries that stay on web site.
“These burned-up batteries nonetheless comprise lots of toxins,” Johnson mentioned. “The wind blows, the night fog rolls in, suspending particles within the moisture — there’s a lot of methods for any remaining toxins to get across the group.”
The hearth ought to “function a wake-up name,” Johnson mentioned, for anybody wanting to construct battery storage amenities close to residential areas and delicate ecosystems.
