We demand that the Town Board of Saugerties, New York, enact an immediate six-month municipal moratorium on the review, permitting, zoning approvals, and construction of all utility-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems Systems.

The current 2008 Saugerties Town Code contains completely obsolete regulations regarding large-scale commercial battery storage. Pushing forward with Key Capture Energy’s proposal to install 136 shipping-container-sized battery units on a hill directly adjacent to the Village line poses an unmitigated hazard to our community safety, environment, property values, and infrastructure.

Why this requires an immediate emergency pause:

Severe Fire and Chemical Hazards: As demonstrated by catastrophic failures at regional BESS facilities like the Warwick site, lithium-ion thermal runaway events release toxic off-gassing and cannot be extinguished with water. Our volunteer fire departments do not possess the specialized training or millions of gallons of contained water required to handle a fire of this magnitude. 

Loss of our indigenous artifacts

Destruction of our wetlands

Erosion of our wildlife's already strained corridors 

Noise pollution (which is especially hazardous to our children, livestock and pets

GROUND FOR EMERGENCY PAUSE & EVIDENCE OF CATASTROPHIC RISK

The Long Island Groundwater Catastrophe: The developer claims these facilities are completely safe, but Long Island proves otherwise. Following a thermal runaway fire at the East Hampton BESS facility, local fire departments were forced to dump over 2.2 million gallons of water to try and suppress the chemical blaze. Testing has just revealed that this soot-fouled runoff breached the aquifer, creating a massive toxic plume of "forever chemicals" (PFAS/PFPrA). Groundwater test wells have detected these lethal toxins at more than 1 million parts per trillion, prompting a massive federal lawsuit by the Suffolk County Water Authority against the facility's developer. 

The Saugerties Water Risk: The Tomsons Road project sits on a hill of ledge rock. If a thermal runaway event happens here, millions of gallons of toxic, chemical-laden firefighting water will immediately cascade down the hillside, contaminating local stormwater systems, private wells, and the Saugerties village water supply. There is no plan for Key Capture Energy to supply water tanks for our volunteer emergency responders to utilize. 

Volunteer Firefighter Liability: Key Capture Energy cannot adequately create safe guards such as  suppression components of in-container water. Considering our fragile geology and site on our aquifer- on wetlands and 1800's quarry filled with water, responders will have little room to position themselves in the event of a fire. We do not want to risk our brave men and women.   Saugerties taxpayers must not be forced to bear the multi-million-dollar liability of a water system contamination disaster like East Hampton.

Saugerties must not become the path of least resistance for energy developers. If 124 other New York localities can successfully pause these projects to protect their taxpayers and volunteer firefighters, the Saugerties Town Board can—and must—do the exact same.

The Saugerties Landfill Water Crisis Precedent: Saugerties leadership has already proven it cannot proactively manage groundwater contamination. Following the disastrous leaching of "forever chemicals" (PFAS) and 1,4-dioxane from the capped town landfill, over 62 Saugerties households were left completely powerless and forced onto state-rationed bottled water. Rather than executing a proactive, airtight safety strategy, local leadership’s historical approach to water contamination has been a reactive cycle of "making it up and figuring it out as we go" while residents suffer. Saugerties taxpayers cannot afford another unmitigated water disaster.