Two weeks after Vistra battery plant fire in Moss Landing, residents are still seeking answers.

While the lithium ion battery-induced fire at the Vistra power plant in Moss Landing is no longer burning, nearby residents still have burning questions about what kind of pollution they may have been exposed to, particularly those who experienced symptoms such as headaches, nosebleeds and a metallic taste in their mouths.

Questions remain, but an announcement made Jan. 27 by San Jose State University marine geologist Ivano Aiello, chair of the Department of Geological Oceanography at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, may provide some insight. Aiello has been testing sediments around Elkhorn Slough for over a decade, and in the days immediately following the fire, he and others got to work taking marsh soil samples within a two-mile radius of the Vistra plant. What they found is that concentrations of nickel, manganese and cobalt – heavy metals, known together as “NMC,” are often used as cathode material for lithium ion batteries – were about 1,000 times their normal concentrations.

“All these three metals are toxic to terrestrial and aquatic life,” he says. “Those things are very tiny, they can lodge into your lungs.”

As for whether the amount of exposure would have health impacts on humans and other animals, Aiello can’t say. He and other scientists will be tracking how the metals move through the food chain and groundwater. “We haven’t done this study before, but in two months, we’re going to know exactly if the metals move from soil to oysters or red legged frogs,” he says. A silver lining, perhaps, is that instead of conducting such a study in a lab, “Now we can do it in a natural environment.”

Michael Polkabla, an industrial hygienist based in Pacific Grove, is volunteering alongside other scientists to gather 125 soil samples since the fire. Their results could be processed within about a week.

As for potential impacts to crops in the area, “every plant metabolizes [the metals] to some degree,” Polkabla says, “spinach in particular.” Asked whether growers should be concerned, he adds: “Absolutely.”

The Monterey Bay Air Resources District reported the particulate matter around Moss Landing during the fire and aftermath never exceeded a “moderate” air quality index reading.

But MBARD doesn’t have the equipment to measure for the most dangerous chemical released by the fire, hydrogen fluoride, an acidic gas commonly referred to as “HF,” which can cause deleterious health impacts from skin and respiratory irritation to tissue damage, among other things.

Officials from the federal Environmental Protection Agency deployed to Moss Landing immediately in the wake of the fire, and set up nine stations to monitor for HF, two inside the Vistra facility and seven in the area around it.

In only one of those stations was HF detected in air – a few hours on Jan. 18, Jan. 19 and Jan. 20 – but the amounts did not exceed the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s level that would be considered harmful for even the most vulnerable individuals.

Prunedale resident Ed Mitchell, who’s been active in organizing a community response team to the fire, could see the smoke column from his house, rising straight up, and says it’s lucky there was little wind in the days after the fire, as it could have easily blown to the Monterey Peninsula. “It isn’t a small issue that affects a small town,” he says.