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Parents, educators press district for answers on proposed battery storage near schools
Summary
Community members urged the board to take an active role on a proposed 200 MW lithium battery storage facility in Watsonville, citing proximity to nine schools, Moss Landing fire risks, lack of traffic and plume studies, and asking whether the district has evacuation plans and coordination with emergency services.
Parents, teachers and residents pressed the Pajaro Valley Unified School District board to seek clarity and play an active role after a proposed 200-megawatt battery energy storage facility (BESS) was disclosed for 90 Minto Road in Watsonville.
Speakers said nine schools lie within roughly a two-mile radius of the proposed site and cited the 2023 Moss Landing facility fire as an example of a worst-case emergency that created multi-hour, hard-to-extinguish fires and delayed evacuations. "Given this, we find it deeply concerning that similar project assembly is being proposed so close to our schools and homes," one parent said.
Questions raised at the podium included whether the county's land-use and truncated environmental review are requiring worst-case plume studies and large-scale fire testing, how district and county evacuation plans would operate for an industrial fire, and whether the developer's claims about "second-generation" containers eliminate worst-case risks. Community members said they had not been adequately informed and urged the district to coordinate with county supervisors and local fire agencies and to push for more rigorous safety analyses.
Board members responded that some city and county-level evacuation and emergency plans exist but agreed that site-specific scenarios (a large BESS fire near multiple campuses) would require tailored coordination. Trustees encouraged speakers to take concerns to county supervisors and to attend a community meeting planned by residents to discuss the project.
The board did not vote or take formal action on the project; trustees asked staff to collect the district's existing emergency-response procedures and to report back. Speakers asked the district to demand that developers and county planners complete plume, traffic and fire-scenario studies before any permit or truncated review proceeds.
