Critics question NYS decision not to test groundwater after 2023 East Hampton battery plant fire

As state and local officials scramble to understand and limit the impact of a toxic plume discovered near a utility battery-storage plant in East Hampton, new questions are being raised about the state’s oversight of the plant following a 2023 thermal-runaway fire that sent millions of gallons of smoke-fouled water into the aquifer.

At issue as governments rush to test groundwater now is why the state did not order groundwater tests directly after the fire, despite on-site reports from a contractor of large amounts of water running off-site.

Gerard Turza Jr., fire and EMS administrator at East Hampton Village, who was at the fire scene, said his team raised questions about firewater runoff and air-quality tests during plant visits. He said plant officials haven’t provided him requested results of air-monitoring studies and "absolutely" should have conducted groundwater studies in the 2023 investigation. Only soil samples and plant swipes were taken, Newsday has reported, citing a 2023 state report.

Knowing the nature of toxins early could have resulted in an earlier mitigation plan, said Turza, who is also chairman of the Suffolk County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Services Commission.

"They weren’t very forthcoming with information," Turza said of plant developer NextEra, which owns the $55 million plant with National Grid. "Every time I asked a question they weren’t able to provide the answer. That’s alarming in and of itself."

In an email to Newsday Friday night, state Department of Environmental Conservation spokeswoman Cecilia Walsh noted that DEC spill responders had been "prohibited by the Fire Marshall" from going on-site at the fire until "days later," after an internal sprinkler system had ceased and the fire was "determined to be fully extinguished." DEC was told that runoff from the sprinkler water had migrated from the building "to an adjacent dirt road" on the southwest side of the building.

Walsh wrote that DEC was told that since no PFAS-containing firefighting foam was used to fight the fire, and that no other information provided to the DEC "indicated the presence of PFAS or any PFAS-related-discharges to soil or groundwater." As a result, she wrote, "DEC did not require groundwater sampling."

On June 2, following revelations in Newsday about a federal lawsuit filed by the Suffolk County Water Authority alleging toxin-laced water from the site impacted four drinking water wells in Bridgehampton, local officials called on state and local officials for help. Two of the wells have been shut down and two others put on restricted service because of the PFAS-related toxins, the authority charged, saying it will cost millions to resolve the problem.

A 2019 report by the Long Island Commission for Aquifer Protection shows East Hampton is the largest Suffolk town using private wells, with just over 7,400 at the time. Around 30 properties immediately surrounding the site appear to be on private wells, said a spokesman for Suffolk County, Peter Guaraldi. 

Homeowners, he said last week, "will be notified shortly" by the county's Department of Health Services via a letter "offering free water testing and asking the property owner to contact SCDHS." They also will be notified by "door-to-door contact with a copy of the letter," he said. Suffolk is contracting with an outside lab to test for the specific short-chain PFAS compounds found in the water, and others. 

State Sen. Mario Mattera (R-St. James), the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee, on Thursday called for a state investigation into the plume and the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s response to it.

Mattera, who sat on the water authority’s board for seven years, said the state's lack of groundwater testing was unacceptable: "Those tests should have been done right away, and if something was discovered they could have controlled it right away."

Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, a Republican, on Tuesday said he’d ordered his Department of Health Services to conduct tests in and around the battery site. 

Romaine said the county is "very much aware" that some residents are still using private wells in the area that may be accessing tainted water. "One of the things I’m talking to my staff about is putting together some money for that. We can’t wait for a lawsuit. We’ve got to extend public water because the contamination there is significant."

East Hampton Town, meanwhile, is calling for help from the state and Suffolk to make sure residents have safe water to drink now.

In a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul and other officials on Tuesday, East Hampton Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, a Democrat, requested that the state, county and water authority "identify and commit the resources needed, whether interim supply treatment capable of removing [toxins] or replacement wells, so that no household goes without water while a permanent fix is built."

Hochul in responses to Newsday earlier this week said she had "reconvened the interagency fire safety working group" on battery-storage plants, but her spokesman didn’t say what instructions she gave them. She also said the state Health Department and DEC are "investigating any potential impacts to water quality."

At an event at Robert Moses State Park Tuesday, DEC Commissioner Amanda Lefton said the agency's "full investigation" of the battery site is underway and "if we find the need and a source we’ll do a full remediation ..." 

Asked if the DEC will start groundwater testing now, Lefton said DEC is "coming up with a sampling plan and a work plan. We’re also partnering with the water authority and the Suffolk Health Services Department on what that full plan looks like, as there’s a lot of different efforts that are happening and we want to make sure there’s a coordinated response from all of us together." 

Lefton pointed to new state fire safety standards enacted in January that include "having modular designs to respond differently, [including] by not using things like water and other suppression methods. And that learning is being implemented now, on a forward-looking basis for those battery systems to ensure that we can deploy them."

National Grid declined to comment, referring inquiries to partner NextEra, which declined to comment on the ongoing litigation. "That said, as ever, we stand ready to work with county and state agencies on any further actions that require our assistance," NextEra spokesman Chris Curtland said in an email.

NextEra is the company identified in a 2023 state DEC report as leading the effort to investigate and clean up the East Hampton Battery Storage Center site after the fire, which burned for more than 30 hours.

In the DEC report, an email from Miller Environmental, one of the companies called in to help with the assessment and cleanup, made clear that the site and surrounding woods had been inundated with water from the extensive firefighting effort.

"Due to the type of battery, the sprinkler system needed to be kept on for a long period of time resulting in the discharge of a large amount of water," Miller Environmental’s Anthony Gilman wrote to the DEC’s Caroline Schmitz on June 5, 2023. "So much water in fact, that it started to leak out of the building and pool outside and in the near bye [sic] wooded area." Gilman included photos in the email.

The report, which Hochul used to declare in December 2023 that there were "no harmful levels of toxins detected" at the battery fire sites in East Hampton and two others, also included information about the limited extent of the investigation overseen by the DEC.

NextEra proposed that only soil samples taken at a depth of 1 foot be used to determine whether toxins may have escaped from the facility. Because those tests proved inconclusive, the DEC did not require further testing, including groundwater tests. As Newsday has reported, one of the companies used for the test didn’t have the capability to test for lithium, the batteries' major component. Soil samples, taken in October, four months after the fire, ultimately were able to be tested for lithium. None showed levels beyond state-mandated safety standards.

In 2024, DEC spokesman Jeff Wernick had told Newsday no groundwater samples were required because, "with no evidence of any soil contamination observed, groundwater sampling was not requested."

"They screwed up," said Romaine, adding, "We’re doing groundwater testing now."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.