The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced Sept. 10 that its field investigation of contaminated drinking water near the site of a 2023 fire at a Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) in East Hampton suggests that the perfluorinated compound in the water “may be linked to the use of a vapor-based waterless fire suppression system” that, when combined with water, can break down into the chemical compound now found in public drinking water wells.
The DEC and the New York State Department of Health (DOH) are currently completing a field investigation begun in June of 2026 to determine the source of these chemical compounds, which have forced the shutdown of two Suffolk County Water Authority wells at its Bridgehampton Wellfield site not far from the Cove Hollow Road BESS.
Pictured Above: The East Hampton BESS facility, a collaboration between National Grid and NextEra Energy, was the site of a fire in May of 2023.
The Water Authority sued the NextEra Energy and National Grid, operators of the BESS, in June, alleging that the facility’s fire suppression system ran for about 30 hours during the fire, and could have released more than 2.2 million gallons of water into the groundwater that supplies the wellfield.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleges that the casings of the batteries “opened and released their contents” during the fire, and water from the fire suppression efforts ran off the property and into an undeveloped area to the south of the property. The wells are about 2,500 feet south of the BESS facility.
Two of the Water Authority’s affected wells, which are south of the BESS facility, exceeded New York State’s maximum contaminant level for a form of a wide class of chemicals known as PFAS, and the Water Authority took the affected wells out of service as a result of the detections earlier this year.
The primary compound found in initial testing is known as perfluoropropanoic acid (PFPrA), which is known by chemists as an ultra-short chain PFAS.
“Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), a state and federally listed hazardous substance, was also found at levels above standards upgradient of the Bridgehampton Road Wellfield,” according to the DEC. “While it is sometimes common to find PFOS exceedances on industrial sites, the levels are high enough to warrant further investigation by DEC.”
The DEC says the fire response “resulted in the application of more than one million gallons of water to the East Hampton Battery Energy Storage System and approximately 4,900 pounds of waterless fire suppression chemicals. The investigation points to the fire suppression system, not battery storage, as a PFPrA source.”
The fire suppression system at the BESS uses the Novec 1230 fire suppression agent, according to the DEC.
Lithium ion batteries, which are used in this BESS, can also release PFPrA when their chemical components begin to break down due to fire. The Water Authority’s lawsuit also named battery manufacturers LG Chem and LG Energy Solutions as defendants.
“Based on the small volume of batteries involved in the fire, combined with the lack of battery-related metals in soil samples, the source of the PFPrA contamination is not likely related to battery materials or the batteries themselves,” according to the DEC, which said its “preliminary analysis is that the significant volume of mixed water and Novec 1230 vapor and/or residue combined to form runoff containing PFPrA, which drained from the EH BESS building, may have entered the environment south of the building, infiltrated the ground, and ultimately flowed south over the past three years towards the Bridgehampton Road Wellfield.”
The DEC says its investigation activities are nearly complete, “with continued groundwater sampling and groundwater depth gauging proceeding through early-to-mid September. Data analysis and reporting will proceed into early fall.”
The agency says its final reporting and other site related documents will be made available here:
https://extapps.dec.ny.gov/data/DecDocs/2601953/.
“DEC will continue field work as part of this investigation and expects to prepare a final report in Fall 2026,” according to the Sept. 10 report. “DEC is also actively pursuing potential responsible parties to take on additional investigation and any necessary remedial work, with DEC oversight. DEC is working closely with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and New York State Fire to further understand the prevalence and chemical composition of the Novec 1230 “clean agent” chemical fire suppression systems at commercial and industrial facilities.”
“Based on current information, Novec 1230 and similar vapor systems are not designed to be used with water,” the agency added. “DEC has confirmed that this type of fire suppression system was not used at three other battery storage fires that have occurred in the state.”
There were three BESS fires in New York in 2023, which led the state to form a task force to study the cause of those fires and release new building codes and safety guidelines for BESS facilities constructed in the future. In the interim, Southampton Town has revamped its BESS code, while Southold Town has an ongoing moratorium on applications for BESS facilities there. Riverhead has favored the technology in recent years, while East Hampton officials now seem leery of the BESS since the contamination was discovered earlier this year.
— Beth Young
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