It’s easy for long-time Catskill residents to remember the old town motto that travelers enter and leave seeing junkyards. The Post Bros. junkyard appears on the southern side of the village and the old Ferro junkyard meets the eye on Route 23.
Residents filled the Catskill Town Hall on Tuesday night for a Town of Catskill Planning Board public hearing on the siting of a proposed lithium battery storage facility. The proposed facility would be located at 8006 Route 9W in Catskill, on the site of the old Ferro yard.
We shouldn’t grow complacent about just how dangerous storing these batteries at the village’s edge can be — and how much more dangerous it could become iin a perfect storm of circumstances. The batteries on site will be made of lithium iron phosphate, the cells will be stacked into modules and then placed on racks. The racks will be stored in temperature-controlled steel containers that will be under 24-hour monitoring.
We’re told the facility will include a water storage pond connected to a dry hydrant system for emergency fire situations. It has to be noted that a similar battery in a Tesla causes a flaming explosion that killed the driver and a Livingston man asleep in his home when the car became a missile and crashed into his bedroom.
That’s what one battery fire can do. Imagine a fire involving 10 lithium batteries, 50 batteries, 100 batteries. A firefighter will tell you a lithium battery fire is one of the most difficult, if not impossible, fires to bring under control. Water mist has proven to be effective for containing a lithium battery fire, but a copious amount of water and time is required. Lithium batteries extinguished with plain water have a documented history of re-ignition.
A growing number of lithium battery fires has firefighters concerned. Lithium-ion battery cells combine a flammable electrolyte with significant stored energy, and if a lithium-ion battery cell creates more heat than it can effectively disperse, it can lead to a rapid uncontrolled release of heat energy, known as “thermal runaway,” that can result in a fire or explosion.
There may be little we can do about the problems of storing these batteries. Having said that, it should be noted the odds of a lithium-ion battery bursting into flames are astronomical, according to some experts. But as the number of electric cars on our roads increases and the number of batteries rises, it’s incumbent on the Town of Catskill Planning Board to examine every minute detail of the proposal, for safety’s sake.