Quick Take
As Santa Cruz County officials work on battery storage facility regulations, members of the Watsonville City Council say they want their concerns to be heard.
As Santa Cruz County elected officials begin to discuss battery storage regulations in earnest, Watsonville city councilmembers say their city should be heard and included throughout the process of writing the ordinance.
“As we move forward, I think it’s important that our voices are heard at the county level,” Councilmember Jimmy Dutra told community members in late October.
Elected officials sent a letter to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors expressing their concerns about a proposed project, led by Massachusetts-based developers New Leaf Energy, just outside Watsonville’s city limits.
The letter, recommended by Councilmembers Ari Parker, Vanessa Quiroz-Carter and Casey Clark, explains their constituents’ “significant and unresolved concerns” about the proposed project. According to the letter, residents are worried about potential thermal runaway from lithium-ion batteries, air quality and how a battery fire might affect the surrounding agricultural landscape.
Dutra, whose district is closest to the project’s proposed location at 90 Minto Rd., told Lookout that the Watsonville community needs to be included in the conversation about battery storage regulations, even though the county board of supervisors will make the final decisions.
Should a fire break out at a battery storage facility in South County, Watsonville’s resources — police and fire departments — would be used to help put it out, Dutra said. “At the end of the day, it’s going to affect our services in Watsonville,” he said.
The councilmembers sent the letter after New Leaf Energy briefed the council in October as a courtesy to allow councilmembers to ask any lingering questions they had about the project.
At that meeting, New Leaf told the city council that its proposed project is safe and unlikely to experience a catastrophic blaze like the one in Moss Landing in Monterey County just south of the Santa Cruz County line. The 300-megawatt facility — the largest battery storage site in the world — caught fire on Jan. 16. The blaze continued until Jan.18. It flared up again a month later, on Feb. 18, and was finally extinguished the next day.
At the Oct. 28 city council meeting, several elected officials expressed their frustrations over having not had a say in a completely unrelated issue: last year’s approval of a 34-unit “tiny village,” a joint project between Santa Cruz and Monterey counties that the council had no power over, despite it being built in Watsonville at Westview Presbyterian Church. The shelter was able to get a building permit approval issued by the city due to a state law that provides expedited review and prohibits local governments from requiring permitting or any other discretionary approval.
Dutra’s biggest concern is a repeat of that decision-making process without local input. He said the battery storage discussion is the perfect opportunity to collaborate with county officials.
“We had no say in the ‘tiny homes’ under state law,” he said. “We need to make sure that we’re not getting railroaded by the county.”
While the Watsonville City Council has no real power over what regulations ultimately get approved at the county level, elected officials are trying their best to represent residents’ concerns, said Clark.
He added that he’s not sure how much weight the letter will carry with county officials, but said he hopes the board will seriously consider the concerns outlined in it. “They’re probably just going to receive it and roll their eyes and laugh,” Clark said. “I mean, look at recent history. When it came to the ‘tiny village,’ they did not give a crap about what we said.”
County Supervisor Felipe Hernandez — whose District 4 is where New Leaf is proposing its facility and represents Watsonville at the county level — told Lookout he encourages input from both elected officials in the county and the community.
“Essentially, we want community input. We want the council’s input,” Hernandez said. “This is what we’re fighting for in this ordinance, so that we can have local control.”
Hernandez said the county board wants to have a broad discussion to write the best possible ordinance that will prevent any developer from bypassing local control.
Santa Cruz County recently made its draft ordinance available ahead of the Nov. 18 meeting on an informational website, with background materials and project documents to help residents understand the purpose of the ordinance.
The new draft ordinance addresses some of the concerns that Watsonville officials outlined in their letter, including requiring developers to follow National Fire Protection Association standards and to consult with local fire districts. County staff will require facilities to have 1,000-foot setbacks in areas near schools, day care centers and residential care facilities. Developers will also need to submit emergency and evacuation plans, along with submitting baseline environmental data on air quality, surface water, groundwater and soil, which can be used as a baseline to compare against in case of a fire at the facility.
The draft ordinance does not address some of the councilmembers’ other issues, such as Dutra’s concerns about how a potential fire might affect Watsonville’s emergency services, such as police and fire departments.
Last month, Hernandez hosted a town hall in Watsonville to hear from residents prior to the first ordinance hearing on Nov. 18. “I think we answered a lot of questions people had,” he said. “We want to make sure that we give the straight facts about this process that we’re going through.”
Hernandez added that he directed county staff to study ordinances being developed in other counties which residents brought up at the town hall. For example, Solano County’s ordinance was updated this summer to lift a 2024 moratorium on new battery storage facilities, but it allows them only in areas zoned for industry or manufacturing.
“We want input from everyone, from local electeds, all the way to business owners, farmworkers and everyone,” Hernandez said.
In neighboring Monterey County, elected officials are moving forward with a moratorium on battery storage projects while staff develop regulations.
The plan to consult with residents and other local governments on new county rules might turn out to have a limited impact. While New Leaf has said it is committed to the local permitting process, the developers have the option to bypass local regulations and ask for approval from the California Energy Commission.
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.