East Hampton demands study after battery facility fire blamed for PFAS in drinking water

East Hampton officials are pressing for answers after local reporting linked forever-chemical contamination in municipal water tanks to a 3-year-old fire at a nearby battery energy storage facility.

Christine Sampson, anchor for LTV East End News, said the town is calling for an independent study to determine whether the East Hampton Energy Storage Center (the BEST facility) is necessary to support the current electrical grid and is demanding a new safety plan, a hazardous-waste plan and engineering controls that would contain all fire and runoff at the site. Sampson reported that the county health department and the state Department of Environmental Conservation have stepped in to investigate.

The broadcast noted that three Suffolk County Water Authority wells remain offline and that 26 houses on private wells are being tested for PFAS-related compounds. The authority is pursuing grant funding to convert roughly 60 homes in the Mattatuck area from private wells to public water service; the authority estimates hookups cost at least $40,000 per home.

Town officials and reporters described the issue as both an environmental and public-health concern; no formal findings were announced on-air, and the report cited ongoing state and county involvement rather than a concluded attribution. The town’s requested study and the agency reviews were described as next steps; the transcript did not include a staff report from the BEST facility operators or a formal response from NextEra Energy or National Grid in this broadcast.

The story is developing: the town has requested technical and policy changes, and state and county agencies are conducting testing and oversight.