Researchers monitoring effects on wildlife
Staff report
Editor’s note: This story came in part from a report by San Jose State University Professor of Marine Geology Ivano Aiello for the website The Conversation
The Jan. 16 fire at the Vistra battery energy storage plant in Moss Landing spewed an estimated 25 metric tons—55,000 pounds—of heavy metals into the air, which were deposited across roughly half a square mile of wetlands around Elkhorn Slough.
That’s according to a report published Monday by San Jose State University Professor of Marine Geology Ivano Aiello on the website The Conversation.
Based on the amount of batteries that burned, roughly 1,000 to 1,400 metric tons of cathode material could have been carried into the smoke plume. What researchers found in local wetlands represents about 2% of what may have been released, Aiello said.
The fire burned for days, with thick black smoke spreading over farm fields and into neighborhoods. Residents reported a variety of maladies, such as headaches and respiratory problems.
The Environmental Protection Agency declared that the air quality met federal standards, but Aiello released an initial study in January that showed high levels of heavy metals in the soil.
“The smoke plume from the fire … released not just hazardous gases such as hydrogen fluoride but also soot and charred fragments of burned batteries that landed for miles around,” Aiello wrote. “The batteries’ metal fragments, often too tiny to see with the naked eye, didn’t disappear. They continue to be remobilized in the environment today.”
Aiello said that the metals can be a serious hazard for wildlife.
“These metals bioaccumulate, building up through the food chain,” he wrote. “The metals in marsh soils can be taken up by worms and small invertebrates, which are eaten by fish, crabs or shorebirds, and eventually by top predators such as sea otters or harbor seals.
Aiello’s group is now tracking the bioaccumulation in Elkhorn Slough’s shellfish, crabs and fish.
“Because uptake varies among species and seasons, the effect of the metals on ecosystems will take months or years to emerge,” he wrote.
Santa Cruz County is considering building another battery plant in Watsonville.
