Southampton Town Board Votes To Approve BESS Moratorium, Hedges on Future of Batteries in Town

The Southampton Town Board unanimously approved a resolution at a special meeting on Thursday, July 20, to set in motion a six-month moratorium on applications for battery energy storage facilities in town — and which includes a halt to the advancement of the proposed Canal Southampton Battery Electrical Storage System in Hampton Bays.

The board set a 1 p.m. August 8 public hearing on the proposed moratorium, which would put a pause on the processing of the Canal Southampton LLC’s application to the Planning Department while it is in effect.

The moratorium would prevent the building inspector from issuing any permits to construct the Hampton Bays BESS facility — whose purpose is to store and release energy onto the grid gathered by solar or wind power — and prevent any Zoning Board of Appeals action as well, according to a media release issued in advance of the Thursday morning meeting.

In voting in favor of the moratorium, the Town Board said it would use the proposed six-month pause to further study BESS proposals, via a paid third-party independent expert, and to determine whether the Hampton Bays proposal should go forward at all.

“It’s going to cost money,” said Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman.

The board had previously considered, and rejected, a three-month moratorium, since it did not encompass pending applications relating to the BESS proposal, such as the one proposed in Hampton Bays, Schneiderman said.

The moratorium will “give the town time,” he said, to analyze a raft of public safety and other concerns over fire, flooding, water quality, noise and other issues that opponents have themselves highlighted.

Schneiderman suggested modifications to the town code could be in the offing “if that is what our findings dictate,” or that the entire project might have to be scrapped if the site is determined to be noncompliant with town code.

The application calls for 30 battery enclosures to be built on just shy of 5 acres off of North Road in Hampton Bays. Each enclosure would contain 24 lithium batteries.

A similar facility on Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton caught fire on May 31, which caught the attention of town officials who had previously signaled support for the Hampton Bays proposal, and who had relied on a negative declaration of possible environmental impacts under the State Environmental Quality Review Act.

Opponents have called on town planners to rescind the SEQRA declaration, which it can do if new information becomes available. Town Attorney James Burke recently said that the East Hampton fire could justify rescinding the declaration.

Schneiderman noted that 2019 code enacted by the town that provided a regulatory framework for battery storage facilities was written with a belief “that these systems are relatively benign” and could be operated safely.

The facilities were needed, he said, because of the town’s push to add renewable energy sources like wind and solar power to locally address the global warming catastrophe now unfolding.

But Schneiderman said that over time — and in the face of ferocious community opposition — “our base of understanding has modified over time as well, and I understand why the public is concerned here.”

Citing a 2021 update to the town’s zoning code, Suffolk County approved the BESS application in January, subject to it being in compliance with the town’s zoning code change; that the storage facility is not located within a so-called “avoidance area” with “special environmental” or other considerations; and that it be built in compliance with town code governing setbacks, lighting, noise mitigation and other factors.

Schneiderman indicated that the moratorium request would be subject to review by Suffolk County. “It’s very important as we ask the Planning Commission — this will have to go through the Suffolk County Planning Commission — for these six months, and I don’t know what they’ll say. They might send it back to us.”

A January staff report from the county’s Department of Economic Development and Planning indicated that the county’s jurisdictional claim on the project stemmed from its proposed location adjacent to County Road 39 and New York State Route 27.

The supervisor did push back against one line of criticism that has emerged as the BESS proposal has come into greater public scrutiny, as he rejected any assumption that the town had opened the door to proposals such as the Hampton Bays BESS plan when it moved to enact legislation in 2019 that appeared to do just that.

“We didn’t open up a door,” he said. “The door was already open,” and the 2019 law, he stressed, was designed to put more controls on any BESS proposals than extant town code governing utilities provided for. “If it’s not enough,” he said, “we’ll add more controls.”

In a back-and-forth exchange with Town Planning and Development Administrator Janice Scherer, Schneiderman teased out the conundrum town leaders now face when it comes to the contentious BESS buildout.

In her presentation to the board, Scherer had indicated that, as an alternative to a lithium BESS facility, the town might consider looking into battery systems that do not utilize lithium, suggesting that it might use deep sand-mine pits to build so-called “gravity batteries,” which, she said, have “no chemicals in them,” just water.

Schneiderman quickly shot back that those sand-mine pits aren’t located near the electric substations critical to tying the storage systems into the electric grid — and that most substations are located in residential areas.

Scherer made a comparison between the substations and deployment of cell towers, noting that the town had opted to build more, shorter cellular towers rather than a single tall one, in order to decentralize their placement, so that “no one place bears the burden.”

The takeaway from the exchange drew the issue into harsh relief: The more decentralized the facilities, the more likely they will wind up “closer in” to residential neighborhoods. The more centralized they are, the more likely they will much be larger and built away from neighborhoods.

The problem is that the Hampton Bays BESS proposal is both large and in a residential area. “That may be the issue with this one,” Schneiderman said, “that it’s closer in and large.”

He later added, “Maybe battery energy storage is not going to work in the town.”

That was very likely music to the ears of BESS opponent Bonnie Doyle, a Lawrence Avenue resident who addressed the Town Board before the vote to “say thank you to those who agree that this BESS installation in a residential area is a very poor idea, and as time goes on we discover why it is such a terrible idea.” She cited recent flooding in the area as just the latest of many concerns raised by opponents.

The company that proposed the BESS facility is opposed to the moratorium. Keith Archer, a spokesman for Rhynland Industries, said in an email that, “We believe a broad-based moratorium is harmful to the stated goals of New York State and the Town’s Southampton 400+ Sustainability plan, which is to encourage development of green energy alternatives.

“These alternatives are designed to eliminate the carbon footprint of polluting thermal power plants. The proposed Battery Energy Storage project is based on proven reliable science and complies with all existing codes and Town zoning and safety requirements. A moratorium will only delay the start of construction at a time when every climate change expert recommends the construction of renewable energy alternatives on an expedited basis.”