More than 80 gather to protest construction of local BESS sites and windmills on Staten Island

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A group of more than 80 residents from Long Island and New Jersey rallied with their Staten Island neighbors Saturday afternoon to protest the ongoing development of battery energy storage systems in residential neighborhoods and the production of wind turbines off the Atlantic Coast.

The protest, which was held at the Midland Beach parking lot, featured a series of speakers consisting of political figures and advocates alike who denounced the projects.

Among those who spoke was Staten Island artist and political activist Scott LoBaido. He emphasized the importance of grassroots movements in spurring change within the community and while he admittedly hoped for a larger turnout, he lauded those who did show up to make their voices heard on the matter.

The artist noted how despite the stereotypical perceptions one forms of others based on political party or demographic, the idea of saving marine life is something that should serve as a unifying issue across the board.

“This is one thing that we can come together on,” LoBaido said. “You know, as much as I’m a conservative, hard-ass, Trump supporter, I’m a liberal, I’m an artist, I believe in this stuff. I believe in community and humanity.”

For many of those gathered, these issues resonate deeply. Some fear that one of these battery sites may set ablaze and spew harmful chemicals into the air in an inextinguishable inferno. Others have a place in their heart for the sea creatures and birds who they fear are put at risk by the titanic turbines.

“Assuming what I understand, to have the BESS battery storage systems near homes, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” said Jeffrey Sinclair, a Sunnyside resident. “I think I understand the reasons why they want them there, but at the same time I don’t think it’s fair to people that live there and I’m right down the block at a high school with over 3,000 students in it. I don’t know what the likelihood of anything going wrong with the storage system is, but I’ve been warned that if things do go wrong — if there’s a fire or something — they’re very difficult to put out.”

Mike Dean, a representative for Save The East Coast, a New Jersey-based nonprofit advocating for the social welfare of the ocean, also spoke.

Dean targeted turbines for not being “green or clean,” claiming that in operations, toxic chemicals leak from the turbines into the ocean. Additionally, he added that the thousands of miles of interconnected cables pose a risk to fish and, as such, the fishing industry.

“[The turbines] produce garbage energy, we call it,” Dean said. “It’s inefficient, it’s intermittent, it ruins the grid and it’s egregiously expensive.”

Councilmember Frank Morano took aim at battery storage sites and the rapid expansion and development of such sites in Staten Island neighborhoods.

“You have this situation where there is this revolving door between lobbyists, campaign donors, your tax dollars being given to private interests and then developers using that very same money to buy up parcels of land and make, not millions, not hundreds of millions, but billions of dollars,” the South Shore Republican added. “Think about what a whacky system this is, where we’re subsidizing energy that is unproven in many respects, unreliable in every respect and it’s being done with your taxpayer dollars.”

Morano also shared that his first legislative proposal will be to make it so that you cannot develop battery energy storage facilities in residential neighborhoods.

He went on to draw a parallel between this push against battery storage sites and the push against liquified natural gas back in the 1970s. At the time, Morano said the opposition to the LNG tanks was labeled as “hysterical” until a fatal disaster with an LNG tank in Bloomfield in 1973. That disaster took the lives of 40 individuals and, as noted by Morano, the tragedy “proved to the world that LNG was not safe for anybody’s neighborhoods.”

Other speakers at the event included John Tabacco and Cara Castronuova. Rounding out the group was Curtis Sliwa, Republican candidate for mayor and founder of the Guardian Angels.

Sliwa referred to how Staten Island has been leading the charge in calling out those responsible for developing these “extraordinarily dangerous” battery storage sites.

“It burns itself out (battery storage sites on fire) five, six days, you have to evacuate, it’s a mini Chernobyl,” he said. “When you finally come back after the plume of Hydrochloric acid goes away and affects other neighborhoods, your property value is zilch. How are you going to get insurance? Who’s going to provide you home insurance if they know you’re right next to a lithium ion battery warehouse?”