Jupiter Power Company’s proposed lithium battery facility in Glenwood Landing and the Propel NY Energy Project have drawn concern and speculation from residents in the Town of North Hempstead and the Town of Oyster Bay communities.
A coalition of eight civic associations covering Greenvale, Glenwood Landing and other surrounding communities recently presented information and discussed the developing projects with concerned residents at a meeting at North Shore High School.
The projects have raised questions about the unknown and suspected long-term health and safety impacts on residents in the areas.
Due to the RAPID Act, which fast-tracks the process of environmental review and permitting for clean energy projects in the state, the local civic associations encourage residents to make their voices heard before the proposed projects become official.
Jupiter Power Company’s Oyster Shore Energy project proposes building a lithium battery facility on the property currently occupied by the Global Oil Company on Shore Road in Glenwood Landing. The 275-megawatt lithium battery storage facility will contain shipping container-like structures that are filled with racks of lithium batteries.
“Oyster Shore Energy is an ambitious clean energy project that will accelerate the clean-up of a contaminated oil terminal and, if approved, could substantially reduce current environmental risks to Hempstead Harbor,” Jupiter Power Company’s senior director of development Hans Detweiler said. “The project would create jobs and increase local government revenues relative to the current oil terminal.”
Resident Christine Panzeca led a presentation about the planned battery storage unit and detailed the health, safety and environmental issues the plan poses. The biggest concern about the facility is the danger of fires, Panzeca said.
Panzeca said that due to exposure to high temperatures, improper storage, and manufacturing defects, fires can break out at lithium battery facilities and burn for weeks, resulting in evacuations and shelter-in-place orders.
“We all know we love on a hamlet, and we know how hard it is to get in; if we had an event here, I don’t know how we would all be able to evacuate,” Panzeca said.
Panzeca said the toxic fumes released from one of these fires can enter the air, soil, water aquifer, and harbor.
“We are in a densely populated area and the projects that they’ve done to date are not,” Panzeca said. “We should decide what comes here, and we need to ensure that we’re not being railroaded into projects that inherently detriment our health and the safety of our families, friends, and community.”
Jupiter Power submitted the initial application to the Town of Oyster Bay in December 2022 and has been working to redesign the project in response to comments from the public and the town, Detweiler said.
The Town of Oyster Bay adopted a moratorium on considering battery energy storage facilities earlier this year and extended it by six months at its Oct. 1 meeting.
“The State of New York is currently updating its fire safety codes for projects like Oyster Shore Energy,” Detweiler said. “Therefore, we plan to wait for the code updates to finalize before we resubmit an updated zoning application to the town.”
The civic associations have been in contact with Jupiter Power to address concerns. Jupiter Power has hosted two public open houses in Glenwood Landing and is planning another event later this year to receive more community engagement, Detweiler said.
“The project could begin commercial operations toward the end of the decade. Construction would not start until 2026 at the earliest,” Detweiler said.
The Propel NY Enrrgy project is a large-scale electric transmission line expansion project to upgrade regional electric service lines.
Large electric transmission cables will be buried under roads in parts of North Hempstead, the Town of Oyster Bay and Hempstead.
Cables will connect to a newly built transmission substation on Shore Road in Glenwood Landing to a substation in Sprain Brook, in Westchester County, through cables in the seabed of the Long Island Sound.
Propel NY Energy said these cables will bolster parts of the electric transmission network and improve system reliability and resiliency. The transmission lines carry electricity long distances, from where it is generated to the distribution lines that bring it to homes and businesses.
Resident and mechanical engineer Cecilia McCann detailed the project. She said the cables will be 7-10 feet below the surface of our roads and within a few feet of homes. The cables are intended to transport offshore wind from Long Island to upstate.
McCann’s major concerns are the EMF emissions from the cables and the lengthy and invasive construction required to lay the cables in the roads.
“The worst-case scenario is 230 milligrams of EMF emissions, which exceeds the 200 limits that is allowed in the state,” McCann said. “EMF exposure can have harmful effects on health.”
The construction will require an open trench, which opens up the ground to lay the cables.
“This construction is going to go on for years. This is going to disrupt traffic patterns. It will have a tremendous impact on this neighborhood and our business district,” McCann said. “It’s going to have a significant impact on how we get around our community.”
George Pombar of the Todd Estates Civic Association said Propel NY Energy’s project is currently in the Article VII process.
This section of the New York State Public Service Law requires a full review of the need for and environmental impact of the siting, design, construction, and operation of major transmission facilities in New York State.
“We welcome the thoughts of all area residents and businesses on the Propel NY Energy project, which is why we’ve proactively reached out to all area neighbors and stakeholders and held hundreds of meetings, including with the leaders of the Glen Head/Glenwood Landing Civic Council,” Propel NY Energy Project spokesperson Shannon Baxevanis said. “We hope that the future yields a collaborative community dialogue focused on accurate and factual information. We have a series of cited fact sheets available for the community (on our website) and we will continue to advance productive and transparent conversations. Our team is available at any time for community questions or clarifications.”
