Quick Take
Watsonville writer Eduardo Hurtado believes community concerns about New Leaf Energy’s proposed battery storage project outside Watsonville should be a red flag to the state to look more closely at the plan and what might happen in an emergency. He worries about New Leaf’s choice to pursue approval for the facility through California's energy commission rather than continuing in Santa Cruz County. The Minto Road facility sits close to the College Lake water storage project, he writes, a key part of South County’s water system. Hurtado insists that this sensitive location requires extra scrutiny of land and water infrastructure and argues that the state must fully assess water safety, emergency risks and local impacts before moving forward.
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Battery energy storage will likely be part of California’s clean-energy future. I am not opposed to that. But clean energy should not become a free pass for developers to bypass local review when a community asks hard questions.
That is now my concern with the proposed Minto Road battery energy storage system, or BESS, near the College Lake water storage project outside Watsonville.
The issue is no longer only whether an industrial-scale battery facility belongs near agricultural land, residents and regional water infrastructure. The issue is also whether a developer should be able to move from the county process to the state process when local concerns become inconvenient.
BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE: Read more Lookout news and Community Voices opinion coverage here
If New Leaf Energy is now choosing to pursue approval through the California Energy Commission instead of continuing through Santa Cruz County, the state should not treat that as a reason to move faster. It should treat it as a reason to slow down and look harder.
Local review matters because local consequences matter.
The College Lake water storage project is not just another body of water on a map. It is part of the Pajaro Valley’s long-term water strategy to reduce groundwater pumping, protect the aquifer, address seawater intrusion and support agricultural water reliability. For South County, the project represents years of planning and major public investment in the region’s water future.
That raises a question the state cannot avoid: How is California balancing what is more critical here — electrical storage or water security?
California has spent years pushing water conservation, groundwater protection, drought resilience and reduced pumping. Yet this proposal could place the College Lake water storage project in a position where a fire, runoff event, contamination concern or public confidence failure could limit the use of an entire water storage system and potentially affect the surrounding water table.
That is not a small trade-off.
If the state is going to push clean energy infrastructure, it also has to explain how it protects the water infrastructure that communities have already invested in. The public should not be asked to accept a project that helps solve one statewide problem while potentially creating another regional water problem for South County.
A BESS facility near the College Lake water storage project creates questions that cannot be answered from Sacramento alone.
What happens if there is a battery fire during a rain event and contaminated runoff reaches College Lake? What happens if smoke, ash, firefighting water, debris or chemical residue enters the watershed? What happens during a drought if water from the College Lake water storage project is needed but becomes restricted, delayed or publicly questioned because of contamination concerns?
If growers are forced back into groundwater pumping because that water cannot be used, even temporarily, that undermines the very purpose of the project. It also puts pressure back on a groundwater basin that the Pajaro Valley has spent years trying to protect.
This is not just a fire-safety issue. It is a water security issue, an agricultural economy issue, a groundwater protection issue, a public health issue and a South County equity issue.
That is why state approval should not move forward unless the local record is complete.
The California Energy Commission may have authority over energy projects, but it should not use that authority to flatten local context. A state process should not mean that the voices of PV Water, the City of Watsonville, fire agencies, growers, shippers, farmworkers, agricultural employers and South County residents become secondary.
If anything, the developer’s decision to go to the state should raise the burden of proof.
Before any state approval, New Leaf should be required to publicly provide the exact battery manufacturer, model, chemistry and container design. The public should see the UL 9540 and UL 9540A testing, fire propagation results, gas release data, runoff-containment calculations, air quality modeling, emergency response plans and comparable operating history. UL 9540 is the safety standard for energy storage systems and equipment. UL 9540A is the fire-test method used to evaluate what happens when a battery cell enters thermal runaway, including whether fire or heat spreads from a cell to a module, container, or larger installation, and what gases or hazards are produced.
The state should require a clear answer to the credible worst-case scenario.
By “credible worst-case scenario,” I do not mean imagining an unlimited disaster. I mean the largest failure in the developer’s own design and test data show is reasonably possible. For example, if New Leaf says the system is modular and physically separated, then the public needs to know what the actual failure boundary is. Is the credible worst case one battery cell failing? One module? One container? Several containers? Or a fire that spreads beyond the original unit?
That distinction matters. A single contained module failure has a very different impact than a full container fire or a multi-container event. Each scenario would produce different levels of heat, smoke, gases, firefighting water, contaminated runoff, road impacts, evacuation concerns and risk to nearby water resources. So my point is simple: if the developer says the worst case is contained to one module or one container, then show the test results, assumptions, fire modeling, gas-release data, runoff calculations and emergency-response plan proving that — and show how those assumptions apply specifically to Minto Road, heavy rain, runoff pathways, nearby homes, agricultural land, and the College Lake Water Storage Project.
The review must account for heavy rain, runoff pathways, College Lake, agricultural water, homes, schools, farmworker exposure and drinking-water confidence. Emergency preparedness cannot be theoretical. The public should know who responds first, who has authority to shut the system down, whether air and water monitoring data will be public in real time, and who pays for testing, cleanup, replacement water, crop disruption, health monitoring and long-term oversight if something goes wrong.
The project’s scale also deserves scrutiny.
Why does this project need to be 800 megawatt-hours (MWh) at Minto Road? Was a smaller Minto Road project studied? Were distributed storage options studied? Were other substation-adjacent sites evaluated? Were alternatives near Freedom Boulevard, Rob Roy or the Paul Sweet area considered? If those alternatives were rejected, why?
“Near a substation” does not automatically mean “one large facility at this exact site.”
Risk concentration matters. One large project next to the College Lake water storage project creates a very different consequence profile than a smaller footprint or a distributed approach.
The state should also confront the equity issue directly.
South County should not be treated as the path of least resistance for regional infrastructure risk. If this project were proposed next to a major water asset, agricultural land, homes and schools in a more politically connected part of the county, would the process look the same? Would the burden of proof be this low? Would the agricultural sector be this quiet? Would the City of Watsonville be this limited?
I am not claiming to know the answer. I am asking the state and county to confront the question.
Clean energy still needs responsible siting. A good technology in the wrong location can still create the wrong outcome.
If Minto Road is truly the safest and most appropriate site, prove it publicly. If the project is safe, bound the worst-case scenario publicly. If the runoff can be contained, show the calculations publicly. If the College Lake water storage project is protected, explain how publicly. If agriculture, drinking water and public health are not at risk, provide the evidence publicly.
And if the answer is, “We will figure that out later,” then the project is not ready and the location is wrong.
The California Energy Commission should not allow a state-level process to become a shortcut around local accountability. South County should not be asked to accept a risk that has not been fully proven, fully planned for and fully accounted for.
Eduardo Hurtado is a Watsonville-area resident with professional experience across both agriculture and retail, including produce logistics, warehouse operations, labor management systems, process improvement and supply chain systems. His writing focuses on South County infrastructure, water security, agricultural resilience, economic development and public accountability.