Owners won't close East Hampton, Montauk battery plants despite demands

The owners of two East End battery energy storage plants won’t suspend operations despite demands by several local governments following revelations linking one to groundwater contamination, saying the facilities are safe and the results of the toxin probe are “preliminary.”

The decision to continue operations of the two LIPA-contracted plants comes as East Hampton’s town board on Thursday voted unanimously to authorize legal action against the owners of the plants in East Hampton and Montauk until a fire suppression system suspected of causing a toxic plume is removed and a new, safer one is installed.

In a Thursday letter to East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, Gary Morris, vice president of the two limited liability companies that operate the plants, wrote that they “intend to continue to safely operate the facilities consistent with their existing permits, all of which the town approved.”

Chris Curtland, a spokesperson for plant co-owner NextEra, declined to comment on the letter, which Newsday obtained from East Hampton Town.

Morris in his letter said East Hampton’s recent demand that the plants be shut down until the suppression systems are removed “identifies no basis for its request that the facilities cease operations” by the Friday deadline.

A town spokesperson declined to comment, but the resolution passed Thursday night authorizes the town to spend up to $50,000 to seek injunctive and declaratory relief in the dispute, including “any and all causes of action deemed appropriate.”

The battery plants are jointly owned by NextEra and National Grid, which also owns the site on which the East Hampton battery facility is located. LIPA has $110 million in contracts to buy energy from the plants, which have operated since 2018.

The East Hampton battery plant experienced a thermal runaway fire in 2023 that required about 2.2 million gallons of water to extinguish and the use of a gas-based suppression system the state says led to a forever chemical contaminating Suffolk County Water Authority drinking water wells. The authority is suing the battery plant owners in federal court.

Morris’ letter noted that the owners have “agreed to disable” the fire suppression system known as Novec 1230 in both batteries, but said they needed to do so safely and hire an engineer to file a report to “independently confirm” how to do it. The companies said the process, including a review by the town fire marshal, would take additional time and approvals, but said the system would be removed five days after getting those approvals.

Meanwhile, Morris noted that the finding that Novec was responsible for the forever chemical PFPrA contamination in local groundwater and drinking water was a “preliminary” finding by New York State, and the owners' agreement to remove the Novec system “should not be construed as an admission of liability, fault or wrongdoing,” nor an “endorsement” of the state’s findings or even that the suppression system contributed to groundwater contamination.

Morris asked for all deadlines issued by the town to be “further extended,” with a “sequenced approach” to addressing the town’s demands.

Gerald Turza Jr., an administrator for the East Hampton Village Fire Department who battled the 2023 battery blaze, said the department, along with Village of East Hampton Mayor Jerry Larsen and Suffolk County, continues to support the demand that the plant be shut down until the fire suppression system is removed and replaced.

“They should not be operating until we have full transparency,” said Turza, who questioned why the system was reinstalled in the battery facility after the 2023 fire even though manufacturer 3M no longer makes the system.

Turza said he does not support a recently articulated state policy of allowing battery plants that experience a fire to burn themselves out without any fire suppression efforts. He said he made his belief clear to the state Department of Environmental Conservation during a recent joint conference call concerning the East Hampton site’s contamination.

Battery proponents say newer battery plants are safer, more modular and less prone to spreading fire. Gov. Kathy Hochul has called for 6,000 megawatts of batteries across the state by 2030, and her administration just last week approved eight new projects, including two that will be more than 20 times larger than the East Hampton battery plant and located just hundreds of feet from the Long Island Expressway, in Holtsville and Manorville.

In her letter to NextEra on Tuesday, Burke-Gonzalez wrote that the town remains "deeply concerned" about the "pace and scope" of actions being taken by the plant owners, and she demanded excavation and off-site disposal of "all impacted soil” from the site to a licensed facility outside of East Hampton Town.

East Hampton also is demanding that soil and groundwater sampling be done at 5-foot intervals around the plant "to determine whether additional remedial measures are necessary," including remediating groundwater. Tests by the state and Suffolk County have shown PFPrA levels at upward of 10,000 parts per billion, well above a site-specific screening level set by the state Department of Health of 3 parts per billion, Newsday has reported.

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

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