STOP the proposed lithium battery storage system at Minto Rd! COMMUNITY MEETING, Spanish translation provided. Saturday 2/28 at Pinto Lake City Park, 451 Green Valley Road. New Leaf Energy’s proposed 90 Minto Road BESS project is within a few hundred feet of dense low-income, disadvantaged and vulnerable neighborhoods packed along Green Valley Road and its side streets.

The White Hawk Iztatutli dancers will open our meeting with a prayer dance.

Speakers include environmental scientists, climate justice and social justice leaders and we hope to hear from District 4 Supervisor Hernandez, and the challengers to his seat in the upcoming re-election: we have confirmed that Elias Gonzales will speak,and possibly Tony Nunez will speak as well.

The Board of Supervisor's Draft BESS Ordinance deliberately allows this unacceptable siting by deliberately excluding dense residential neighborhoods from the 1,000-foot protective setback for sensitive receptors. The BoS is poised to pass the 90 Minto site at the same time that they are still putting together a draft Ordinance to regulate it, and are using data from the developer (!)rather than independent consultant firms to enhance their understanding about the scope of the project!
Other egregious omissions in the Draft BESS Ordinance include:
· no required large-scale fire testing, which was removed from the current updated Draft BESS Ordinance
· no required plume study of a worst-case scenario where all 250+ containers burn linked to the large-scale fire testing results
· no requirement for the safest Acute Exposure Level Guideline (AEGL) of 1 linked to the large-scale fire testing results
· no incentives for non-flammable, non-lithium battery technology
· no required impartial earthquake hazard and liquefaction analysis
· no requirement for a full Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for any proposed project, which would be required by the CEC if the developer were to apply to the state through the Opt-In program
· no separate full EIRs for the Draft BESS Ordinance and New Leaf Energy's proposed 90 Minto Road BESS project – instead they are combined into one SUPPLEMENTAL (shortened) EIR to save money
· elimination of the 30-day scoping period for public comment at the beginning of the EIR, which would allow the public to submit comments identifying areas of concern and respect CEQA’s mandate to open the environmental review to public participation as much as possible