Quick Take
After last week's fire at the Moss Landing battery plant forced evacuations and caused health and environmental concerns, calls for accountability have increased. The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors will hold a briefing next week, while Central Coast lawmakers have called for a thorough and transparent investigation.
The Moss Landing battery plant fire has burned out, and now calls for accountability and information are heating up.
District 4 Supervisor Felipe Hernandez, board chair of Santa Cruz County’s board of supervisors, announced Wednesday that he and his colleagues will host a briefing at next week’s meeting, “ensuring residents are informed and engaged in this critical conversation.”
Although the Moss Landing Power Plant sits just south of the Santa Cruz County line, the fire placed heightened focus on an application for a similar, $200 million battery-storage facility along Minto Road, just outside of Watsonville. Massachusetts-based New Leaf Energy submitted the application on Dec. 17, one month before the fire sparked in Moss Landing.
“We cannot accept facilities in our neighborhoods that pose a risk of repeated catastrophic incidents,” Hernandez said in a statement. Hernandez’s district encompasses much of South County and Watsonville. “A thorough environmental impact review will also be essential to fully assess the potential benefits and risks to our environment and community.”
Hernandez said his office and the county’s infrastructure department will work with Watsonville to “ensure residents have a meaningful voice in shaping the future of energy projects in our region.”
However, many questions remain unanswered, particularly on how the fire started, why it grew out of control and why neither local fire departments nor the plant’s owner, Texas-based Vistra Corp., had the resources to extinguish it.
Earlier on Wednesday, Assemblymember Dawn Addis, whose district stretches from San Luis Obispo into Live Oak, called the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct a “fully transparent investigation” into the cause of the Moss Landing fire, assess the risks inherent in battery technology, and recommend prevention measures. State Sen. John Laird and Assemblymember Gail Pellerin both signed on to the letter.
“California must never have a disaster like this again,” the letter reads.
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