Ever since an enormous fireplace tore by one of many world’s largest battery storage services 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 hearth has been too excessive, stopping crews from beginning the prolonged, harmful removing 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 removing with Texas-based Vistra Corp., which owns the battery power 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 facets of battery removing and to get the federal government’s approval earlier than it proceeds.
“Vistra will conduct and pay for the battery removing and disposal course of beneath EPA’s oversight,” Kazami Brockman, the EPA’s on-scene coordinator, stated throughout a Monterey County information briefing Wednesday. “If the settlement just isn’t carried out to EPA’s satisfaction, EPA does have the authority to take over the cleanup and invoice Vistra for the fee.”
Brockman added, “We anticipate that this work will proceed for over a yr because of the technical complexity in addition to the protection measures being put in place to guard the employees and the neighborhood.”
In an e-mail Wednesday night time, Meranda Cohn, a Vistra spokeswoman, stated “battery removing 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 gasoline into the air and prompting the evacuation of about 1,500 folks. Firefighters let it burn, citing the hazards of dousing lithium-ion battery fires with water, which may trigger harmful chemical reactions.
The fireplace 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, based on Vistra.
Such battery programs retailer extra power generated throughout the day and launch it into the ability grid throughout instances of excessive demand, together with night hours. These services are seen as important for stabilizing the state’s electrical grid and advancing the transition to cleaner power as a result of they will retailer photo voltaic and wind energy to make use of when the solar isn’t shining and generators usually are not 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, based on 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 case and the injury to the batteries.”
The broken constructing — full of burned and unaffected lithium-ion batteries — stays risky, which has each slowed and sophisticated the cleanup.
“The problem right here is there are batteries in numerous states of cost, nonetheless with the ability to maintain cost, all the way in which to fully consumed,” Brockman stated.
During the last six months, crews have eliminated fireplace particles containing asbestos and disconnected safely accessible batteries to scale back the danger of reignition, based on the EPA.
A serious fireplace erupted on the Moss Touchdown energy plant on Jan.16, 2025.
(KSBW through Related Press)
Some parts of the constructing have been “fully inaccessible,” Ramon Albizu, the EPA’s lead on-scene coordinator, stated 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 stated. “That requires a number of planning.”
For the reason that fireplace, the EPA, Vistra and different regulatory companies have created greater than 30 work plans associated to the demolition and battery removing, he stated. Work to stabilize the constructing ought to start by the tip 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 huge burn zones in Altadena and Pacific Palisades inside 28 days.
Albizu stated the battery removing in Moss Touchdown differs vastly from the removing of smaller batteries in Southern California, lots of which got here from electrical automobiles. Within the Vistra constructing, every of the 99,000 batteries, he stated, is about 4 toes lengthy and weighs greater than 200 kilos.
“It’s one thing that’s unprecedented,” Albizu stated of the battery plant fireplace.
As soon as every battery is eliminated, its remaining power will likely be transferred to a different supply, based on the EPA. If the batteries are too broken for that to be performed, crews will discharge them by brining, throughout which they’re submerged in a water-and-salt resolution.
The batteries then will likely be transported off-site for disposal, David Yeager, director of venture growth for Vistra, stated throughout the Monterey County information briefing Wednesday.
In a press release to The Occasions on Thursday, Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church, whose district contains Moss Touchdown, stated he was “disillusioned it has taken this lengthy to come back to some extent the place cleanup can start, however security have to be a precedence.”
Based on Vistra, the reason for the blaze “stays unknown” and remains to be beneath investigation by the corporate. The California Public Utilities Fee additionally has an ongoing investigation.
The Vistra fireplace rocked California’s clear power 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 power, writing that it was “time for America to observe California’s lead.”
He wrote that the flexibility to retailer clear electrical energy was “a key issue” in hitting clear power objectives and that, during the last six years, the state has added 15,000 megawatts of battery storage capability, sufficient to satisfy 1 / 4 of peak electrical energy demand.
“Extra is on the way in which,” Newsom wrote, “together with the biggest battery venture on the planet, now being permitted in Fresno County by California’s new fast-track allowing course of.”
Together with extra security rules 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 stated they skilled at the very least one symptom — mostly complications, sore throats and coughing — shortly after the fireplace. Practically 1 / 4 of respondents stated that they had hassle 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 legal professional with the legislation agency Singleton Schreiber, stated lots of of close by residents have joined a lawsuit towards Vistra, LG Power Resolution and Pacific Gasoline & Electrical, accusing the businesses of failing to keep up satisfactory fireplace security programs.
Johnson stated plaintiffs are “very anxious” in regards to the batteries that stay on web site.
“These burned-up batteries nonetheless comprise a number of toxins,” Johnson stated. “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 neighborhood.”
The fireplace ought to “function a wake-up name,” Johnson stated, for anybody wanting to construct battery storage services close to residential areas and delicate ecosystems.
