The Suffolk County Water Authority filed a federal lawsuit against the operator of an East Hampton Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) operator late last week after the discovery of high levels of perfluorinated compounds in nearby public drinking water wells following a 2023 fire at the BESS facility.
East Hampton Town is now calling for a task force to protect the community’s drinking water.
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.
Two of the Water Authoirty’s affected wells, which are south of the BESS facility, exceeded New York State’s maximum contaminant level for PFAS, and SCWA has taken the affected wells out of service as a result of the detections, according to East Hampton Town, which released a statement about the incident on Friday.
The 5 MW BESS system, called the East Hampton Energy Storage Center, is at an electric substation on Cove Hollow Road. It is a joint venture of NextEra Energy Resources and National Grid that came online in 2018. In addition to the operators of the Energy Storage Center, the Water Authority’s lawsuit also names battery manufacturers LG Chem and LG Energy Solutions as defendants.
A fire broke out at the BESS system on May 31 of 2023. Officials said at the time it was contained as designed, with a built in fire suppression system.
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.
The public drinking water wells have since been found to be contaminated with perfluoropropionic acid, or PFPrA, a form of PFAS, which is found in lithium ion batteries, “among potentially other chemicals, which were released during a fire at the East Hampton Energy Storage Center,” according to the lawsuit.
Firefighting foam used primarily to smother flames during a vehicle fire had historically been made from perfluorinated compounds, which are a source of PFAS frequently found in the environment. But lithium ion battery fires are suppressed with high volumes of water, not foam, and the form of contamination, PFPrA, is an indicator of the breakdown of lithium ion batteries, not firefighting foam.
The lawsuit alleges the facility’s fire suppression system ran for about 30 hours during the incident, and could have released more than 2.2 million gallons of water in that time.
On Friday, June 5, East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez issued a statement calling on New York State, Suffolk County, and Suffolk County Water Authority leaders “to form a coordinated joint task force to protect the community’s drinking water and groundwater.”
According to Ms. Burke-Gonzalez’ memo, “the Suffolk County Department of Health Services has informed the approximately 30 households potentially affected and begun going door to door in the affected area. We understand that Suffolk County will provide drinking water testing free of charge to residents in the area of concern, which is south of 3 Cove Hollow Road. Some of the properties served by private wells in the potential path of the contamination may be located within the Village of East Hampton.”
In a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine, and the Suffolk County Water Authority, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez “asked the offices to establish a joint task force to ensure that residents’ drinking water and the underlying groundwater are protected, including testing nearby private wells and pooling state and county resources so that the burden does not fall on ratepayers or individual homeowners.”
“East Hampton residents deserve to know that when they turn on the tap, the water there is safe. We cannot ask families to wait years for a court to decide who is responsible before their water is protected,” she said in the statement. “That is why I called on the state, the county, and the Water Authority to come together now to share data, align on a treatment and replacement strategy, and commit the resources our community needs.
“I am grateful that county health officials are now testing private wells door to door, because families who draw their water from private wells have no way to know whether it is safe unless someone tests it. We will keep pressing every level of government until this is resolved. I have also informed the East Hampton Village Mayor of these developments.” she added.
Ms. Burke-Gonzalez faces a June 23 Democratic Primary challenge from East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen.
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