‘We’re asking for safeguards’: Tensions flare at Watsonville town hall on planned Santa Cruz County battery storage safety law

Tensions ran high at a packed town hall in Watsonville on Monday to discuss Santa Cruz County’s plans to pass a law regulating battery storage facilities, with county officials outlining tougher location and environmental restrictions even as residents pushed back with anger, fear and a long list of questions.

Just weeks before the board of supervisors is scheduled to have the first hearing of its battery storage ordinance on Nov. 18, District 4 County Supervisor Felipe Hernandez hosted the informational town hall Monday night at Watsonville’s city hall. The meeting allowed community members to weigh in on the ordinance and was also intended to address residents’ questions about a proposed 200-megawatt battery storage facility on Minto Road near Watsonville.

Concerns over the future of battery storage systems in Santa Cruz County have only grown since a massive fire at a facility owned by Texas-based Vistra in Moss Landing. The 300-megawatt facility — the world’s largest battery storage site — caught fire on Jan. 16. The blaze continued at the Monterey County facility, just a few miles south of Watsonville, until Jan. 18. It flared up again a month later, on Feb. 18, and was finally extinguished a day later, on Feb. 19. 

Santa Cruz County officials first introduced an ordinance to regulate the development of battery storage facilities last fall, months before the Moss Landing blaze and also before Massachusetts-based developers New Leaf Energy submitted its project application for the planned Minto Road facility. 

At the time, county leaders were focused on issues such as finding suitable land parcels close enough to electricity substations, Stephanie Hansen, assistant director of community development and infrastructure for the county, told Lookout in September. Following the Moss Landing fire in January, Hansen said, the ordinance shifted focus more on safety standards for the facilities. 

During the town hall, Hansen told residents her department has added even more safety standards to the draft ordinance. Some of the new requirements include 1,000-foot setbacks from “sensitive receptors” — vulnerable areas such as schools, day cares and hospitals — and prohibiting the use of batteries containing nickel, manganese and cobalt — chemicals that were used at the Vistra facility. 

With the new setback requirements, the parcel of land near Dominican Hospital in Live Oak — formally identified as a potential site for a future battery storage facility — no longer qualifies, said Hansen. The only two feasible locations for battery storage sites in the county are the Minto Road site just outside Watsonville and on Freedom Boulevard in Aptos. 

She added that developers will also be required to submit baseline data on air quality, surface water, groundwater and soil, which can be used as a comparison if a fire were to occur at the facility. Developers will also need to provide a smoke drift study demonstrating how the plume of a fire will drift in the air to understand safety risks. 

“Once we have the draft ordinance settled, our next step is really to do an environmental review,” Hansen said. The environmental study will focus on the effects of the potential safety concerns, such as air and water quality. Once environment testing results from the Moss Landing fire are available, that data will also be analyzed. 

Monday’s updates appeared to do little to allay residents’ concerns. Some community members asked about home values declining and a possible increase in home insurance rates due to the New Leaf project. Along with county staff, Deputy Fire Marshal Chris Walters, Max Christian, project lead for New Leaf Energy, and other energy experts were on hand. But none had a definite answer to those questions. 

Community members also raised fears over evacuation plans in case a fire breaks out at a future battery storage facility in the county. Dave Reid, director of the county’s office of response, recovery and resilience, told the audience that an evacuation plan would be developed in coordination with his office and local fire agencies. 

“So at this point at the ordinance conversation level, we have not developed the emergency action plan,” Reid said. But the idea is to develop a clear plan on who would get notified and evacuated under certain conditions and what that response plan would look like, he said. 

Watsonville resident Shirley Flores-Munoz directed her comments toward New Leaf, telling Christian that planning this project in Watsonville is “ethically wrong” and will affect the agriculture industry. 

“You’re putting an industry of [battery storage] over the industry of the agricultural business, in which we rely on fresh air, good soil and clean water,” she said. 

Resident Brett Garrett told county staff that he’d like to see more emphasis on using safer energy alternatives, like sodium-based batteries, in the ordinance to mitigate any fire risks. Even if those alternatives might cost more, the community might be more receptive to them, he added. 

Other community members offered their own suggestions for the ordinance, and recommended that Santa Cruz County model its ordinance after one in Solano County. The law was updated this summer to lift a 2024 moratorium on constructing battery storage facilities in Solano County, but only for areas zoned for industrial or manufacturing use. The county maintained a ban on such facilities on agricultural land. At the town hall, some residents argued for similar restrictions in Santa Cruz County. 

“We are asking for safeguarding,” said resident Tracy Murphy. “We came in with a list of 32 proposals that Solano County has proposed. We are begging you to add those to the ordinance, instead of just rushing ahead on Nov. 18.” 

The Watsonville City Council authored a letter to Hernandez and the board of supervisors, echoing some of the concerns from residents nearly two weeks when councilmembers were briefed on the New Leaf project. 

Originally scheduled to be discussed by supervisors in April, the ordinance was delayed until August. But at their Aug. 19 meeting, county officials postponed a decision again, opting to wait for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign a bill authored by state Sen. John Laird that requires battery storage developers to coordinate with local fire departments before submitting an application to both the state energy commission and local governments for their projects.

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