Becky Steinbruner - Stop Lithium Battery Energy Storage SC 6/6/25

On January 2025 The Moss Landing battery fire, a significant incident at Vistra's energy storage facility, caused widespread concer and disruption. The fire occured in a building housing thousands of lithium-ion batteries, triggering evacuations and raising concerns about the safety of large battery installations.Becky Steinbruner of the Community Matters show joins us to discuss a coalition of citizens with the goal to have Board of Supervisors approve a temporary moratorium on grid-scale lithium battery storage, facilities, covene a technical advisory panel to make recommendations regarding the impending draft Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) County Ordinance, and hold town hall meetings with the public. One of the three sites the County has selected to place a BESS is 90 Minto Road in Watsonville. That project, known as Seahawk Energy Storage, is already in the permitting process and would employ over 300 storage containers filled with lithium batteries. This is an agricultural area that borders College Lake and is near the County Fairgrounds, which serves as the evacuation shelter for the County.