County officials reaffirmed there is currently no risk to public health in the air, water or soil as phase one of the cleanup process continues at the Moss Landing Battery Storage facility, following the Jan. 16 fire.
The battery delinking process, or disconnection, for the accessible batteries burned in the initial January fire was completed March 13, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. This was part of the first phase of hazard mitigation to reduce the risk of thermal runaway, re-ignition, and fire propagation. Officials with the EPA have warned that while delinking the batteries reduces the risk of large fires, there is still a chance for additional flare ups like the one that occurred on Feb. 18. Crews are continuing work with the expectation of another flare up.
REALTED: Moss Landing Battery Plant fire cleanup process estimated to take more than a year
The batteries that were not accessible are under, and near debris in the damaged Moss 300 building. EPA officials say crews will have to wait until more debris is moved and the demolition process starts before starting that delinking process.
During last week’s county briefing, Vistra officials said they are still months to a year out from starting the demolition process, but are in talks with contractors.
“At this point we are focused on the delinking process,” said Brad Watson, senior director of community affairs for Vistra during the March 5 breifing. “We are considering demolition vendors at this time and we’re going to be very methodical on how to move forward on this process, so there’s not going to be a schedule for a while, I would say months, not weeks.”
In the meantime, the county is continuing sampling through a multi-agency strategy and including community samples from Never Again Moss Landing’s surface wipe summary and Santa Cruz County’s surface water and agricultural sampling.
“At this juncture the county is transitioning from response to recovery, but ultimately we are very much still in a response posture, both of these are overlapping,” said Kelsey Scanlon, director of Emergency Management.