Monterey Supervisor Glenn Church described Moss Landing battery plant as "our three-mile island"
The County of Monterey Board of Supervisors held an emergency meeting and media conference over the Moss Landing battery plant fire Friday morning. County officials informed that a local emergency was declared. Officials said that 75% of the building was burnt. The cause of the fire is still being investigated.
The plume of smoke coming from the fire is considered toxic but has gone up high enough that it is currently not a concern for residents, per officials at the meeting.
Vistra Energy officials stressed safety as their top priority after a fire at their facility, while county officials have a lot of questions about how this happened. Vistra's Senior Director of Community Affairs, Brad Watson, acknowledged the event's impact on the community, saying, "We will make those very public…we care for our communities." Vistra employees did say there was a built-in fire suppression unit, but it failed and wasn't able to suppress the fire that started in the battery storage unit.
When KSBW 8 reporter Felix Cortez asked Vistra what their plan for this worst-case scenario was Watson answered, "There was a mitigation system that was water-based. Part of what we will be doing is studying and investigating why that didn't work as designed. That will be one of the many questions we will be going through what happened here. We will investigate it and will find out what the cause is."
Supervisor Glenn Church described this incident as our three-mile island. "This is really a lot more than just a fire. It's really a wake-up call for this industry," said Church. "And if we are going to be moving ahead with sustainable energy we need to have a safe battery system in place."
https://www.ksbw.com/article/county-monterey-emergency-moss-landing-fire-vistra/63459428