“Please extend this moratorium,” Glenwood resident Maria Palmieri urged the Town of Oyster Bay board.
She was one of 30 residents who voiced their concerns at a public hearing Tuesday, April 8, on the the possibility of building battery-storage facilities in the area.
“You, the residents, own this town,” Supervisor Joseph Saladino said.
The town held the hearing at its April board meeting about the extension of the moratorium on its battery energy storage system, nearly one year to the day after the town’s first moratorium was approved.
The town’s current moratorium is set to expire on April 30. It had last been extended in October 2024 after a dozen residents provided public comment on the topic. Tuesday’s public hearing would call for an additional six-month moratorium to be imposed, which will be voted on by the Nassau County Planning Commission this Thursday. The public comment period was left open until April 13.
Michael Montesano, the special counsel to the town attorney’s office, and Ralph Raymond, the second vice president for the Association of Fire Districts for the State of New York and commissioner of the North Massapequa Fire District, spoke to the board about the extension of the moratorium. They said that there would be no changes to the current moratorium, which says no land use applications for battery energy storage systems shall be approved or processed during the period.
Champe Fisher, a representative from the Bethpage Battery Storage Project, which wants to put a one-acre, 44-megawatt facility at the old Grumman site, made the only public comment against the moratorium extension.
“We would like the board to know that we are still interested in pursuing our project at the appropriate time,” he said.
One Hicksville resident who spoke during the public comment period said that he had not heard about the proposed project.
The moratorium mainly involves Jupiter Power Company’s proposed 275-megawatt lithium battery storage facility in Glenwood Landing.
The proposed lithium battery facility is near the Glen Head and Glenwood Landing elementary schools and civic associations in Greenvale and Glenwood Landing. Community members in those areas have previously voiced their concerns over the facility and that sentiment continued on Tuesday.
One Glenwood resident asked the board to put a permanent ban on the project, which received a round of applause. Saladino told her that a permanent ban has a lot of legal implications but that the board understands the opposition.
Other residents shared similar reservations as they raised the concerns of the community.
“If this facility is allowed to be built, it is an accident waiting to happen, Eileen Small, a Glenwood Landing resident, said.
“I can honestly say that no one wants these projects built here,” said Steve Warshaw of the Gold Coast Business Association.
Edward Lieberman, the former mayor of Sea Cliff, said he was not planning on speaking on the matter before coming to the podium and delivering a direct message.
“If I can’t get on a plane carrying a lithium battery, then that says it all,” he said.
Many residents voiced their concerns about the environmental impact of the storage facilities.
The Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility fire in California in January caused an evacuation of the facility, extensive damage to the facility and many environmental concerns, according to published reports. That incident was mentioned at Tuesday’s public hearing as a deterrent for storage facilities in the town, as well as other smaller incidents across the country.
Saladino, along with Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jen DeSena and Town of Hempstead Supervisor Don Clavin, spoke out against the state’s efforts to tighten its grip on local large-scale energy projects on April 1.
