STOP the KINGFISHER ENERGY STORAGE PROJECT in the Covington/Kent area of unincorporated King county in Washington State!
Goldfinch Energy Storage, LLC has signed a real-estate purchase option agreement for 14.1 acres in Covington Washington and intends to build a a massive industrial battery storage facility in a residential and rural zoned area- the proposed parcel is zoned RA5 (which is one residential home per 5 acres) and is surrounded by two "R6" residential (6 homes per acre) neighborhoods and "RA5" rural zoned areas.
The proposed location is next to Mattson Middle School, two large neighborhoods, rural homes (on wells), several wetlands, designated Chinook Salmon streams, and Bald Eagles nest in 100+ year old trees on the proposed property.
We estimate it will house 40 large containers (similar to 40ft shipping containers) that will have very loud intake and exhaust fans running up to 24/7 365 days a year. Overall each container will put out about 93db of noise up to 24/7 365 days a year.
A train whistle 500ft away is 90db (each battery container would be louder than a train 500ft away blowing its whistle 24/7 365 days a year).
A jackhammer 50ft away is 95db (each battery container would be slightly quieter than an jack hammer 50ft away- but would be going 24/7 365 days a year).
The battery containers are LOUD! But not as loud as the required transformer- it puts off 100db 24/7 365 days a year.
It is equivalent to a jack hammer 25ft away and running 24/7 365 days a year,
It is equivalent to a jet take-off (at 305 meters) 24/7 365 days a year.
Listening to anything louder than 90db for more than 30 minutes is dangerous and can cause permanent hearing loss and we will have this up to 24/7 365 days a year.
That's not the worst of it... They can put up 30ft sound barriers and hand out hearing protection... The sound barriers will reduce the sound down to 70db- like someone running a vacuum 24/7 for the people immediately on the other side of the 30ft barrier- but, everyone living 500ft away or at a higher elevation, it won't make much of a difference...
The worst, and most catastrophic, effect of putting this industrial sized battery facility in our area is what gets released into all the surrounding areas when there is a fire.
These battery facility fires release cyanide and hydrofluoric acid into all the surrounding areas via smoke (and firefighter's water- which is only used to suppress the fire and keep the fire from spreading to additional battery containers). These fires can take days or weeks to put out.
There was a recent EV car battery fire, and the firemen used 30,000+ gallons of water to put out a small EV battery. This industrial facility's battery capacity will be 1,400x bigger than the biggest EV battery.
When these fires happen, and firemen around the world are still learning how to put them out, they will be called in from all around- a recent fire had 30+ fire engines respond and it still took weeks to extinguish. Air quality tests were being taken up to 40 miles away (down wind).
Firefighters have learned it is better to wait for it to run out of combustibles than battle the fire- which can take weeks of smoke filled with cyanide and hydro-fluoric acid blowing away in the wind-which will be spread all around... Possibly, into Lake Youngs Reservoir.
Every battery fire has resulted in a “Shelter-In-Place" order and in the rare instance where the battery facility is near a community or highway everything is ordered to lock-down/closed down within a 2-4 mile radius around the battery fire. That means all schools, homes, businesses in downtown Covington, all roads and highways would be locked-down and if people can’t evacuate a “Shelter-In-Place” order will be issued.
All these schools, families, and businesses would be forced to evacuate or lock down and shelter-in-place.
It isn't if there will be a fire, but when.
There hasn't been a single industrial battery complex fire where the fire-suppression system successfully stopped the battery fire once the battery fire started. Once “thermal-runaway” starts, fire departments don't have a way to extinguish burning batteries efficiently.
In one horrible battery fire, the fire department dumped concrete mix on the fire: https://www.wspynews.com/news/local/fire-officials-to-use-concrete-mix-to-extinguish-lithium-fire-blaze-in-morris/article_e2ae6df0-da61-11eb-9f75-030ebdaaee76.html
Since the firefighters can't extinguish the battery fires, all the firefighters can hope is that by keeping nearby battery containers wet and cool, the fire won't spread to neighboring battery containers and catch on fire too. That means 100s of thousands of gallons of water and fire suppressant chemicals sprayed hoping to keep the fire from spreading, but not actually putting the battery fire out….
And that is where the really bad environmental impacts happen... All the cyanide and hydrofluoric acid gets washed away into all the surrounding soil/fields, school grounds, streams, wetlands, storm drains, into people's wells, into wildlife drinking water sources, into Chinook salmon streams.
It would be devastating!
Catastrophic!
Kids, families, and animals would get sick and possibly die.
This is not the right location for this battery facility.
I haven't found a single facility placed next to a school, nor within 50ft-100ft of people's bedrooms. These belong in industrial zoned areas- not rural residential nor residential zoned areas.
Period.
Save kids, families, homes, businesses, wildlife, and this beautiful rural environment and communities.
Please support our movement to stop this battery facility from being built.
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Update 3/20/23:
To all who are asking, here's who we can be contacting before this gets the "Proposed Land Use" sign put up and a public hearing scheduled:
Covington City Council:
Mayor - Jeff Wagner - Position #7 jwagner@covingtonwa.gov
Mayor Pro Tem - Sean Smith - Position #5 ssmith@covingtonwa.gov
Kristina Soltys - Position #1 ksoltys@covingtonwa.gov
Jennifer Harjehausen - Position #2 jharjehausen@covingtonwa.gov
Debra Hartsock - Position #3 debra.hartsock@covingtonwa.gov
Joseph Cimaomo, Jr. - Position #4 jcimaomojr@covingtonwa.gov
Elizabeth Porter - Position #6 eporter@covingtonwa.gov
They will tell you it is outside of Covington's City limits.... But, they need to be fully aware that they need to be onboard with the fight to stop this industrial facility from being built next to Mattson Middle School and two large neighborhoods full of people who they represent!
Here are the links Mayor Jeff Wagner provided in his response to me of who we should contact:
Conditional Use Permit for Unincorporated King County:
https://kingcounty.gov/depts/local-services/permits/permits-inspections/land-use-permits/conditional-use.aspx
And, the Local Services Permitting Division:
https://aca-prod.accela.com/KINGCO/Default.aspx
And, to direct our concerns through the King County planning department:
PermitQuestions@kingcounty.gov
Again, we need as many people as possible to contact both Covington City Council and the King County Planning department throughout this process to voice our concerns.
We can also contact the Kent School district:
Israel.Vela@kent.k12.wa.us
Tim.Clark@kent.k12.wa.us
Wade Barringer,
Associate Superintendent of Strategic Initiatives and Operations for KSD (EMAILED 3/17/22) Wade.Barringer@kent.k12.wa.us
And we should all be reaching out to the King County Council as they are the decision makers/influencers on whether this industrial facility will be built:
Contact all King County Council members:
https://kingcounty.gov/council/councilmembers/find_district.aspx
ZZCNCMEMBERS@kingcounty.gov
Covington- Reagan Dunn reagan.dunn@kingcounty.gov
Renton/Kent Dave Upthegrove dave.upthegrove@kingcounty.gov
Auburn/Kent Pete von Reichbauer pete.vonreichbauer@kingcounty.gov
East King County Sarah Perry sarah.perry@kingcounty.gov
King County Executive office: kcexec@kingcounty.gov
This will be a long and drawn out battle, but as long as as many people as possible email the "people in power" to let them know we oppose this facility, then we may sway them to side with us instead of Goldfinch Energy Storage LLC.
And, please share this petition with everyone you know!
Thank you!