Groups urge Brookhaven to form task force to develop guidelines for battery storage plants
A battery storage facility is under construction at the rear of the Town of Brookhaven's municipal garage property in Patchogue. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Leaders from 11 civic groups and three school districts requested this week that Brookhaven Town form a task force to propose guidelines for the safe placement of large battery storage plants across Long Island’s largest town by area.
Their mission: "protect the health, safety and quality of life of Brookhaven residents."
In a March 10 letter to Brookhaven Supervisor Dan Panico, the groups noted that Southampton Town had recently formed such a task force, and that New York State recommends them.
Most Long Island towns, cognizant of past fires at the plants around the world, have moratoriums on battery storage plant construction. Only Brookhaven and East Hampton, which has had two completed plants, one of which experienced a fire in 2023, don’t have moratoriums.
Two battery facilities are under construction in Brookhaven, despite objections from nearby residents, and at least seven others are planned, including two reported by Newsday Wednesday for Yaphank.
The proposed battery task force in Brookhaven would "develop criteria to evaluate potential sites," including buffer zones to keep the facilities "at a safe distance from schools, hospitals and residential areas," the groups said in their letter. It would also develop safety regulations and "standard procedures for the safe operation of these facilities, as well as clearly delineate the BESS [battery energy storage system] owner’s accountability and responsibilities, in the event of a failure in the storage system."
Concerns about the batteries were heightened in January after one of the largest such batteries in the world, at Moss Landing, Calif., experienced a fire that took days to extinguish and left toxins in nearby marshlands.
Brookhaven has a special zone for battery storage units, and the two separate units already under construction are on town property on North Ocean Avenue in Patchogue and adjacent to the South Service Road of the Long Island Expressway, at Morris Avenue in Holtsville. Panico in a Newsday story last week said he’d delay any new town approvals until the state finalizes new fire safety codes for battery plants.
The groups, including civic associations in Port Jefferson, Mount Sinai, Farmingville, Miller Place and Three Village, and the Port Jeff, Comsewogue and Three Village Central School districts, said a task force could also "help protect the town from litigation, should there be an incident at one of these facilities."
George Hoffman, a board member of the Three Village Civic Association, said the task force would give local residents who reside around proposed plants a say in where and how they are sited. As it is, he said, "We’re letting developers pick where they go."
Panico in an interview Thursday said he "generally support[s] community involvement and input and if the civics want to put together a task force on their own and produce their findings to the town board, that’s something they may want to take up on their own."
But he said the town board would make the final decisions on battery plant siting.
"Under the law the town board members are the people empowered to do the zoning and planning," he said.
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
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