Mattituck attorney Stephen Kiely, who is running on the Republican line to unseat sitting Democratic State Assemblyman Tommy John Schiavoni, is calling on the State Legislature to take a step back from Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS).
He made the announcement Wednesday across the street from a light industrial-zoned farm field on bucolic Oregon Road in Cutchogue where a BESS had been proposed before Southold Town instated a moratorium on the new technology in 2023. That moratorium is slated to continue until at least 2027 after being renewed this April.
Mr. Kiely took particular issue with a proposed new state law, currently being considered by the State Senate’s Energy and Telecommuncations Committee, that would allow the state’s Office of Renewable Energy Energy Siting and Electric Transmission (ORES) authority over BESS systems.
The agency currently issues siting permits for large-scale solar and wind projects.
That proposal is sponsored by State Senator Brian Kavanaugh of the 27th Senate District in lower Manhattan, where BESS developers have been at odds with Con Edison over the installation of batteries. Mr. Schiavoni is not a sponsor of the Assembly version of the bill.
Mr. Kiely called ORES an “unelected Frankenstein monster that has authority to bypass local zoning, ignore local objections and approve these atrocities on vacant lands.”
“Where is the most vacant land on Long Island?” he asked. “Right here in this district. To me this land is not vacant. It is living, working and sustaining communities and economies every day…. Farms preserve open space, strengthen local agriculture, help feed communities and maintain quality of life…. These are not obstacles to environmental progress. They are environmental progress. The greatest gift we can give future generations is not electricity — it is preserving the natural systems that have protected this place for generations.”
Battery Energy Storage Systems had been pushed heavily by New York State as it began to implement its ambitious renewable energy goals several years ago, but public backlash against the technology has gained steam after several 2023 fires at BESS facilities in New York, including one in East Hampton, where nearby public drinking water wells have since been found to be contaminated with perfluorinated compounds.
BESS systems are often installed in conjunction with renewable energy projects to store energy generated at times of high winds or bright sun for use when the renewable sources are not producing energy.
One BESS battery chemistry now being phased out, lithium ion, has proven particularly susceptible to “thermal runaway,” an overheating condition that can lead to massive and difficult-to-contain fires.
Mr. Kiely, a former Shelter Island Town Attorney who had run for Southold Town Board on a platform of “Keep it Rural” in 2023 before running for the Assembly District 1 seat against Mr. Schiavoni in 2024, has spoken often of his support for Article 9 of the New York State Constitution, which in 1963 gave local municipalities “home rule” authority over land use in their communities.
Support for home rule has been a defining platform of East End legislators for decades, and Mr. Kiely is not alone in his disdain for New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s apparent disregard for home rule, including her recent push to change State Environmental Quality Review Act law to make it easier for developers to build.
“Albany continues to pursue high density housing proposals and add legislation that will further weaken home rule and local planning authority. It will not prevail under our watch,” said Mr. Kiely at the press conference. “Our previous town boards always made sure the environment trumped development. Right now, Albany, facing immense pressure to satisfy big green energy, is looking statewide for vacant sites to shove sprawling industrial solar farms, wind farms and ultimately battery storage facilities on farmland.”
Mr. Kiely was joined at the press conference by Southold Town Councilwoman Jill Doherty; Alex O’Mara, a founder of the community group Save Oregon Road formed in response to the BESS proposal there; upstate New York farmer Alexa Fasulo, who has been fighting a solar energy farm being pushed by ORES in her community; and Southampton Town Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara, who was a vocal supporter of Southampton’s strict BESS siting rules, instated in response to a large BESS proposed near the Shinnecock Canal in Hampton Bays.
Ms. Fasulo, a social media influencer and the founder of the American Land Rescue Fund, Inc., which opposes large scale solar development, began her advocacy in response to the Fort Edward Solar project proposesd near her farm in Washington County.
“We’re losing two things in this state and it’s very intentional,” she said. “We’re losing home rule and we’re losing our ability to govern our towns and our zoning laws… If BESS is brought under ORES, these moratoriums won’t matter.”
She added that the state’s Energy Research and Development Agency is reclassifying prime agricultural soils using a tool meant for property tax assessment, to make them seem less ideal for farming, calling it a “New York made-up soil classification system that downgrades what is considered prime mineral soil groups.”
“Any perceived opposition, like many environmental non-profits, disappear along the way when this is happening,” she added. “They must all get in line with climate alarmism or risk losing their state funding. That’s how New York keeps groups from speaking out against catastrophic solar and wind and battery complexes.”
She said she had recently returned from Washington, DC, where officials at the USDA and the EPA had been very interested in her case.
“A lot of Albany media wants to pretend this isn’t happening. The governor can pretend all she wants that she didn’t receive a four-page letter from them regarding soils. The federal government is paying attention here,” she added. “A nation that destroys its most productive soil for renewable energy sprawl is a nation that will not exist in the future. We’re only going to get one chance to protect farmland. It’s about to get interesting.”
Ms. Doherty, the Southold Town Councilwoman and the only Republican on the Southold Town Board, said the town has been working on BESS code changes, but “that’s taking years.”
The Southold Town Board has not yet held code committee discussions on recommendations made by its Battery Energy Storage Systems Task Force in April of 2023, one year after the town’s moratorium was first instated.
“Until these energy centers can satisfy all of our concerns about the many safety issues, I’m not on board with approving any BESS facility,” said Ms. Doherty. “There are many other products around the world that can help us with green energy. We have to have a code so we can tell Governor Hochul we’re handling it. This is home rule. Stay out of our business.”
The Oregon Road BESS was proposed on a parcel in a small block of light industrial-zoned land that is currently a sod farm not far from the town’s capped landfill and several other industrial operations. Both this property and neighboring lands are currently being farmed, and preservation of farmland in the Oregon Road area has been seen as a testament to Southold Town’s preservation of its rural past.
Ms. O’Mara, the co-founder of Save Oregon Road, said the town and county had spent millions of dollars on farmland preservation on Oregon Road.
“To build a BESS would be throwing away our tax dollars, and more importantly, would put the community’s health at risk,” she said, adding that BESS explosions often happen in coastal areas where the batteries are exposed to moisture in the air.
Ms. McNamara, the Southampton councilwoman, said Southampton’s new BESS code, instated after a moratorium and a great deal of public scrutiny, is “extremely stringent. Public safety was at the forefront of our decision. The state loves to come down and trump our home rule.”
Ms. McNamara said Assemblyman Schiavoni, a former Southampton Town Councilman, had “decided it would be a good idea to adopt state model legislation without questioning it.”
“We need people in Albany who are going to fight for us, and question the state,” she said, telling the crowd of Oregon Road residents gathered at the press conference that “if it wouldn’t be for you, there probably wouldn’t be a moratorium in Southold either.”
Mr. Schiavoni had initially voted along with the majority of the Southampton Town Board to adopt model code in 2020, before the dangers posed by BESS fires were widely known, and had voted to approve the moratorium after the public backlash. He was elected to the State Assembly before the Southampton Town Board voted on the new regulations.
The Southold Town Board had discussed changes at the state level regarding Battery Energy Storage Systems with Mr. Schiavoni at its June 16 work session.
“We’re still in a moratorium, and state guidance seems to be changing again,” said Town Supervisor Al Krupski at that meeting. “We didn’t want to do something and have the state override it with something else.”
Mr. Schiavoni, a former volunteer firefighter, had advocated for more strict safety requirements for BESS systems when we spoke with him for a candidate profile before he was elected to the Assembly in 2024.
“There are a lot of questions around BESS on its best day,” Mr. Schiavoni told the Southold Town Board June 16. “We’ve seen in the Town of East Hampton lawsuits flying around because of the fire that was supposed to be completely ok. We do need storage. There’s a lot of ways to store energy.”
But, he added, “whenever you try to describe this stuff it’s a chemistry lesson, and it doesn’t go well.”
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