Whats in the News

Battery storage project’s true cost in Wendell
Gone will be our dark night sky, gone or compromised the wildlife that lives in the forest
In Wendell, a proposed battery storage system threatens to severely change the character of our town. Installed on 11 acres of forest, which will have to be clearcut, atop one of the largest and cleanest aquifers in the state, and adjacent to a preserved wetland, the project will store energy for four hours a day to be used in periods of peak demand. The batteries themselves are lithium, a highly flammable element, that can’t be put out with water and has to be left to burn out, releasing toxins that would require the whole town to evacuate. What’s more, the battery life is only 20 years. How will the spent batteries be disposed of?
In order to mitigate the noise generated by the batteries, New Leaf Energy, the energy conglomerate that is petitioning the town, intends to install a 25-foot fence and lights that stay on all night. Gone will be our dark night sky, gone or compromised the wildlife that lives in the forest, the lights and incessant noise detrimental to their survival. And to ours, the people who have chosen Wendell as home, because we value the forest and calm over the convenience of more populated areas.
At this point the state is overriding our Wendell bylaws in support of the battery storage project. There needs to be a way to support a transition to renewable energies without destroying pristine forest and sacrificing precious resources.
MARA BRIGHT
Wendell

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Protecting natural environment a balancing act
MY TURN, Greenfield Recorder, December 21, 2023
By COURT DORSEY
Arecent article on theshoestring.org, “The Forest and the Trees: Western Mass’ Solar Siting Problem,' is incredibly enlightening, and deserves to be read by anyone who values Franklin County’s beautiful natural environment. The issue of balancing solar development with the need to protect our environment and natural habitat is well laid out there. Particularly thought-provoking are sections that describe how current Massachusetts state policies incentivize industrial-scale solar projects, instead of projects that could be developed in already disturbed lands, like making individual rooftop solar affordable, so homeowners can claim financial benefits. This makes our forests, which are recognized as successful at sequestering carbon, opportunistic targets for capital-driven, industrial-scale projects, including the so-called 'solar' battery project proposed for forested land in Wendell.
It is not a solar project, but a 'buy cheap, sell high' venture like Northfield Mountain. However, it comes claiming a legitimate climate change strategy: potentially to store energy that is produced when the sun shines and the wind blows. But why pit solar activists against biodiversity activists, when in fact, we should be working together to help create an appropriate statewide solar siting plan?
We in Wendell need to stand with our state-wide neighbors, like our friends in Shutesbury, who are fighting a 350-plus acre forest clear cut for a solar array there. We all need to protect our forests and farmlands. We must learn to walk and chew gum at the same time: find a way to resist climate change and protect and value our natural, 'carbonsequestering' environment, with its biodiversity and life-sustaining aquifers (not to mention preserving nature's incomparable beauty!).
We in Wendell find ourselves at a critical juncture in this balancing act, as a potential 'sacrifice zone' for the 'Forever Growth' economy and its idée fixe, its obsession with profits. If the state can override our Shutesbury and Wendell zoning bylaws to accommodate corporate appetite for profits in inappropriate places, what other community will be able to stand against such opportunistic development? And lithium fires at a project of this size can be toxic for miles. Our fire departments do not have the capacity to put out such fires. Then say goodbye to 50 years of a curated forest greenway, a jewel of Franklin County.
Many thanks to our Wendell Selectboard for its decision to intervene against this massive corporate battery project. We need to support their leadership. And let's find ways to build coalitions with other citizen organizations around the state that are working for appropriate solar, including taking a deep dive into our collective energy use. Maybe the Pioneer Valley could unite as a green zone to resist such industrial-scale environmental sacrifice zones. In the meantime, Wendellians are stepping up to protect our precious forest, as we did when we helped defeat the effort to plow the Kinder Morgan fracked gas pipeline through the middle of Franklin County. Please help us by signing the 'No Assault & Batteries' petition. Contact NABWendell@crocker.com to receive, sign and even circulate it yourself. And be ready to take action.
Court Dorsey lives in Wendell.

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On April 19, 2019, a HAZMAT team was called to an energy facility in Surprise, Arizona. A large metal container was leaking milky white smoke. It was a 2-megawatt battery energy storage system (BESS). According to one account, “Hundreds of the system’s lithium-ion battery cells had experienced a catastrophic failure and were in a dangerous state known as thermal runaway.”

When the HAZMAT team opened the container door, “a sudden explosion rocked the facility, a jet of flame extended 75 feet outward and 20 feet vertically.” The explosion force blew the HAZMAT captain 70 feet from the container door. A fire engineer was thrown violently 30 feet. Two nearby firefighters were knocked unconscious, their breathing apparatus and helmets ripped away. The captain and fire engineer suffered traumatic brain injuries, and thermal and chemical burns.

The massive explosion “confirmed for some a long-simmering fear: that the fire service and safety community are unprepared to deal with this burgeoning technology … battery incidents are so challenging for first responders.”

There were 28 BESS fires in South Korea between 2017 and 2019. “The Korean government changed storage policies from unusually strong support to zero support [and] a deterioration in the profitability of the batteries which acted as an obstacle to industrial growth, along with the fire risk.”

In December of 2020, Borrego Solar Systems of Lowell sought support from the Wendell Planning Board to apply to the state Department of Public Utilities (DPU) for a Zoning Exemption Order from all Wendell zoning rules. Borrego wanted to construct a 105-megawatt battery energy storage system on Wendell Depot Road, using lithium-ion batteries in above-ground enclosures on a 51-acre lot of which 11.1 acres of the wooded site would be clear-cut. The site would have an 8-foot-high security fence and a 25-foot-high sound barrier wall. It has no solar panels, and generates no solar energy. The batteries are charged by electricity from the grid, which is transmitted back during times of peak demand to “Eastern zone centers.” In 2022, ECP, a New Jersey investor, acquired Borrego’s development arm, and created New Leaf Energy, which in turn, created Wendell Energy Storage 1, LLC suggesting other facilities will follow.

The Wendell Planning Board voted to support Borrego in April of 2021, but four weeks later sent a letter to Borrego saying: “The Planning Board does not possess the expertise to evaluate the potential impact of a battery project” on a “Critical Natural Habitat” on the property. The Planning Board also notified the DPU that its support letter was “premature,” and rescinded “any specific or perceived support of this project.” The Board said the project had too much impervious area, and told Borrego: “Members of our community are upset at the thought that the Planning Board would diminish our local control.”

Wendell Town Meeting voted in 2021 to impose a moratorium on BESS, but the amendment was never received at the state attorney general’s office, and had no lawful effect. Wendell’s Conservation Commission denied the New Leaf application based on noise impacts on the 50-foot conservation zone. Town Meeting voted in 2022 to amend its zoning to prohibit stand-alone battery energy storage facilities” — but the AG ruled that the ordinance violates a state law that prohibits unreasonable regulation of “structures that facilitate the collection of solar energy”— except to protect public health, safety and welfare.

“No Nukes” author and activist Anna Gyorgy, a Wendell resident, listed citizen concerns: deforestation; destruction and disturbance of critical wildlife and wetland habitats; noise, light and chemical pollution; preference for conservation to reduce peak demand; environmental problems with lithium extraction and waste. “Like the Northfield Mountain Pump Storage project, New Leaf’s big battery center doesn’t produce or store renewable energy. It’s a ‘buy cheap, sell dear’ scheme to store and resell dirty energy, sacrificing forests and fish for corporate profits.”

The DPU has not scheduled a public comment hearing yet on the Wendell project. The town will have a window of four weeks to decide if it wants to be an intervenor, which allows it to participate in evidentiary proceedings, and to appeal the final decision.

Borrego told Wendell it’s “committed to addressing concerns of town officials,” yet it seeks total exemptions from all local zoning. Wendell (pop 921) is not equipped to respond to a “thermal runaway.”

This project has an operating life of only 20 years. Batteries degrade, the storage system will be decommissioned and removed. The curse of living in a rural landscape like Wendell, is having to endure unreasonable corporate development assaults.

Al Norman’s Pushback column appears in the Recorder every third Wednesday of the month. He is an author and activist who lives in Greenfield. The group No Assaultin’ Battery can be reached at: NABWendell@crocker.com.

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I agree with columnist Al Norman that “the curse of living in a rural landscape like Wendell is having to endure unreasonable corporate development assaults.” [“Assault and batteries in Wendell,” Recorder, Nov. 15].

We should not let Wendell fight this proposal alone. The electricity from the Wendell lithium battery storage project will not power any home or business in Franklin County — it gets sucked into the electric grid that feeds eastern Massachusetts. It does not produce energy, only buys and stores it when it is off peak at a lower cost and sells it during peak hours at a higher cost. The benefit is solely to the company and does nothing for the consumer. The only thing it produces is profits for big corporations and all western Massachusetts gets is a heavy metal manufacturing facility located on top of an aquifer.

There are no solar panels or solar power generated by this battery system. It’s just another power grab funded by a California-based company with a New Jersey capital investor.

The 1985 state law that allows these companies to seek an exemption from all local zoning in the name of “solar energy” is an affront to local home rule. All citizens in western Massachusetts should oppose this power grab. Wendell should not bear the full cost of this fight. Please email NABWendell@crocker.com and contribute to the fundraising. More of these projects are coming to your town soon.

The proposed 105-megawatt lithium battery project in Wendell is an assault on our entire region. When I served as a Selectboard member in Northfield, we fought off the assault of the Kinder-Morgan pipeline, which offered no energy to our town. The we is Northfield, Franklin County and beyond. It is now time that we come together again and fight this for-profit, against the environment project. It is not a Wendell issue, it is a regional issue and beyond. Please consider how you can join in the fight to protect western Massachusetts against an assault and battery.

Jed Proujansky

Leverett