As questions surrounding a fire at the Vistra lithium ion battery facility in Moss Landing continue to swirl, the County of Monterey held a press conference Saturday with a slate of elected officials and experts.
District 2 Supervisor Glenn Church, whose district includes Moss Landing, opened the presser, and wanted to draw attention to the good work of the North County Fire Protection District of Monterey County in their response. He then looked ahead.
“As we look at this today, I’m cautiously optimistic that the worst of this is over.”
He then emphasized that he wasn’t going to stand idly by.
“I have a lot of doubts about where we’re at with this technology,” he said. “I’m hoping this facility will not be turned back on until we have some answers as to how this happened.”
Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, spoke next, and expressed hopefulness the situation was coming to an end, and also that such an event won’t happen again.
NCFPD Fire Chief Joel Mendoza said he was optimistic about being able to open up the closed roads tonight. Evacuation orders were lifted on Friday, about 24 hours after being issued.
Olivia Trombadore from the Environmental Protection Agency said the agency has deployed nine different monitoring devices to test for hydrogen fluoride, the toxin emitted when lithium ion batteries burn; two inside the plant, four outside, and three others to the north, east and south. She said the results show nothing that would “pose a risk to the public.”
An initial air monitoring report completed by Vistra contractor CTEH was obtained by the Weekly via a California Public Records Act (and is included below). It shows detections of oxygen and particulate matter, but not of hydrogen fluoride (HF), hydrogen chloride (HCl), carbon monoxide (CO) or hydrogen cyanide (HCN).