City planners table BESS proposal
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City of Dunkirk Planning Board members appear to have little appetite for approving a proposed Battery Energy Storage System.
The board tabled consideration of a 5-megawatt BESS near Brigham Road at its latest meeting -- and agreed to send a letter to the Common Council inquiring about a moratorium on new BESS development in the city.
Gridi, LLC wants to put the BESS in an area not visible from the road near the railroad overpass. It's a project much smaller, but much closer, to Brigham Road than a separate BESS project that recently received tentative approval.
Gridi's proposal includes four battery containers, two transformers and an "equipment enclosure panel." It would disturb about half an acre of land.
Several residents expressed concerns about the latest proposal during a public hearing on it, held prior to the Planning Board meeting.
Rick Heald works for Turftenders, which has a warehouse next to the proposed site of the BESS. He complained the business did not receive a site plan for the proposal. Heald also worried about spacing of the battery containers, firefighting plans, toxic gas emissions, an increase in local property insurance, and sound.
"It just seems like it's not warranted for this area here," he said. "It's between a railroad, a school, a lake, and residents are nearby."
Gridi representatives told Heald that hazardous materials experts from the company would be available within 15 minutes of the start of a fire. They said the containers have built-in fail-safes to halt the spread of fires.
They said exposure to toxic gases would be limited beyond the direct area of the battery, around 100 feet. They claimed to have not heard anything about rising insurance rates as a result of BESS projects.
As for sound, the Gridi reps said it would dissipate at a distance from the BESS array. Heald retorted that the nearest house is just 150 feet away.
The location of School 5 just down the street from the proposed site was a concern repeated by other speakers.
"The biggest thing: There's a school there, folks," said Mark Lutz, who operates Dan's Moving and Storage within sight of the school.
As for insurance, "you know it's going up. That's a given."
"I am worried about our children," said Deb Rozumalski, a retired teacher. She feared a lengthy displacement for School 5 children if a nearby BESS had a serious issue.
"There's plenty of places in Jamestown or something they could put it," she commented.
Mike Mansfield, former Dunkirk City School District superintendent and its current financial manager, offered a brief statement.
"Of course the school is going to be concerned about the proximity of the students," he said.
City Assessor Erica Munson declared that "residents have legitimate concerns" and "asking these questions is not opposition to progress, it's responsible local government."
She rattled off a series of questions, similar to Heald's, and stated that "Dunkirk should understand why so many communities have moratoriums before moving ahead with BESS."
Munson said it was legitimate to wonder if approving individual BESS projects makes sense before the city has formalized a set of guidelines for them. "It doesn’t have to mean rejecting technology, it can mean taking time to get the rules right," she said.
Planning Board members evidently had an ear for that.
Board member Ed Schober motioned to table review of Gridi's proposal, and requested that the Common Council enact a BESS moratorium until the city completes its zoning code update. Schober mentioned "a rather concerning letter" from health officials about the project. His motion was unanimously accepted.
Unsurprisingly, that seemed to irritate Gridi's lawyer. He said the company should have an opportunity to respond to the letter and the comments made at the public hearing. He stated that under current city codes and zoning, the BESS is legal to place. "Sitting on our application is not legally permissible," he said.
Elliot Raimondo, the city's attorney, responded that the Planning Board can ask the Common Council for a BESS moratorium as long as it does not cite any single application for a project.
"You're tabling it for now, but you can't delay it forever," he said of the Gridi project. "If the city council chooses no action on this, you can't delay it."
Dunkirk Planning and Development Director Vince DeJoy, a supporter of BESS projects, commented later about the concerns expressed during the hearing.
He texted the OBSERVER, "In the public hearing notice, it specifically states that site plans and application materials were available for the public to review. Not one person called or stopped in to review them."