Black Rock and Jupiter power is looking to build a BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) right here in Snoqualmie on the Ridge. A heavily populated area. This is a petition to stop this project. 

Points to consider regarding why this is something we don’t want in our community. 

Point 1 - Proven dangerous and highly toxic to our community and environment. Fires, primarily caused by thermal runaway in lithium-ion cells due to damage, defects, or overcharging, are intense, hard-to-extinguish, and produce hazardous toxic smoke. Recent incidents, such as those at Moss Landing and Gateway in California, show these fires can last for days, often requiring specialized firefighting tactics like letting them burn out to manage "stranded energy".              

Causes: Thermal runaway is the primary cause, where a battery overheats, leading to a chain reaction that spreads to other cells, often caused by short circuits, overcharging, or mechanical damage. We live in a very windy valley that causes a lot of damage multiple times a year consistently now. Our community is at a greater risk for a storm to cause damage to the cooling systems or other parts of the storage system. And if it’s windy during the fire, it easily jumps to the trees and underbrush sending it directly to burn down the houses in closer proximity.

Challenges: Once ignited, BESS fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish, often requiring large amounts of water (our valley water supply is  already stretched through our drier, hotter months) for cooling and sometimes lasting for days, as seen in the 2022 Arizona and 2024 California incidents. Our local firefighters will be over extended managing this, be subject to health impacts from emissions, and need to clean up and properly dispose of burned or impacted batteries at our cost. 

Hazards: These fires can release toxic fumes/gases (such as hydrogen fluoride) and fine-particle fallout into the air, water, and soil causing significant environmental risks and health impacts, fires can also cause "stranded energy" (reignition risk), and sometimes result in explosions. This danger affects all residents, businesses, schools, hospitals, visitors staying in local hotels, and local wildlife. 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (.gov)

Key Environmental Impacts:

* Air Quality: Smoke plumes release hazardous gases and fine particulates, posing risks to local air quality and requiring protective equipment for first responders. Especially dangerous for the more vulnerable populations in our community. 

* Soil and Water Contamination: Firefighting runoff can transport toxic chemicals from damaged batteries into the ground and nearby water bodies such as Fisher Creek connecting to the Snoqualmie River. 

* Long-Term Contamination: Research into specific incidents, such as the Moss Landing fire, has identified long-term accumulation of toxic heavy metals (like cobalt, nickel, and manganese) from lithium-ion cathode materials in surrounding soil.

* Ecological Impact: In sensitive areas, such as wetlands, the deposition of metal particles from smoke or runoff can impact wildlife and vegetation.

So much of the planning, building, systems, maintenance, and response to issues have to be so PERFECT for no fire event to happen, for no permanent damage to the community after a fire event, and the it’s cleanup, that this is absolutely not worth the risk to the valley and our community. 

Point 2 - BESS provides little to no benefit to the local community in a power outage. A community wide power outage typically happens because the transmission lines between the local substation and the neighborhood are damaged. If there is power stored at the substation via BESS it can't reach households through a damaged transmission line. We will still rely on PSE to fix the broken connection causing the outage. 

The only time a BESS helps for a power outage is when power from the grid to the substation is cut off and the transmission lines to the neighborhood are still intact. However BESS has capacity limits and typically only support power for 1-4 hours depending on demand. 

* Capacity Limits: If the outage lasts longer than the battery's stored capacity, the power will go out until the grid is repaired.

* Infrastructure: For this to work, the BESS must be explicitly designed for backup/microgrid functionality, rather than just selling energy back to the grid during normal operations. 

Point 3  - Location of BESS in communities are not considered for the benefit of the community. BESS locations are primarily being chosen for close proximity to power substations as they are less expensive to install. It costs the companies like Jupiter Power (who are based in Austin, TX - not local) a lot more money to place BESS on land that is safer for communities. This is due to the fact that they would need to run power transmission lines further distances and get the right-of-way approval for more land. They will use our community to sell our power, make money, and don’t have any local ties or care for where their BESS sites are placed. 

Point 4 - Some noise pollution also comes with BESS. (We hear the freeway and are farther away from it than the BESS location will be.) 

The main noise sources from a BESS facility are:  

Cooling systems  

Like any electronic device, grid scale battery systems operate most optimally and safely at an ideal temperature and humidity. Therefore, various air or liquid cooling and heating systems are used. Sound from inlet and outlet airflow vents, as well as fans and pumps are emitted from each battery enclosure. The sounds from these systems are like rooftop heating ventilation and cooling units in commercial buildings.  

Inverters

A small amount of energy is lost in the form of heat with this conversion, so cooling is needed to prevent overheating. This is usually accomplished with air-cooled fans that produce some noise.  The process of converting DC into AC power requires very fast switches which change the polarity (or direction of electrical flow). In the United States AC power cycles 60 times per second (or 60 hertz), so the switches must activate twice per electrical cycle. This process produces tonal sound. The nature of this sound is typically heard as a buzz. Tonal noise is often much more noticeable in the presence of other background sounds, which can be particularly annoying to the people hearing it.  

Transformers

The sound most people think of from transformers is a distinctive “hum”. If you’ve ever been around an outdoor substation or a building’s transformer vault, you may be familiar with this sound. Transformers are used to change AC voltages to step up or step down in the level. Everyone should be familiar with the cylindrical transformers on telephone poles that lower the voltage from the high voltage transmission lines to a level that is safe for use. The transformers at a BESS facility are much larger than those you see on telephone poles.

There are three sources of noise from within the transformer: (1) core noise, (2) coil noise, and (3) fan noise. The core and coil noise are caused by electromagnetic forces which occur two times for every cycle of AC power. Like the inverters, this results in a 120-hertz or 100-hertz primary sound source, along with its harmonics. The third source of sound is from cooling fans mounted outside the transformer.