On Wednesday, a law firm representing 800 people affected by the January fire at the Vistra Moss Landing battery facility in Monterey County held a rally there with environmental advocate Erin Brockovich.
Since the Jan. 16 fire, a wave of lawsuits has been waged against Vistra Corporation, PG&E and other companies associated with the facility. Complaints range from health impacts to a decrease in property values or the loss of businesses and livelihoods.
Speaking at the rally was attorney Knut Johnson with Sacramento-based firm Singleton Schreiber, who said that even though PG&E’s adjacent Elkhorn battery facility did not burn, PG&E was complicit because it was involved in the planning and implementation of the Moss Landing facility.
“We’ve gone through all their contracts filed with the state of California, and they had a very clear role in designing everything,” Johnson said Wednesday. “We think it was designed incompetently. We’re also still working on other connections between PG&E and Vistra, but we think as a matter of law they’re guilty of negligence too.”
Johnson traveled in person to the rally along with Brockovich, an environmental advocate who was portrayed by Julia Roberts in the Oscar-winning 2000 film titled Erin Brockovich.
Brockovich has a history with PG&E. As seen in the film, she was instrumental in building a winning case against the utility company involving groundwater contamination that caused a cancer cluster in the rural town of Hinkley in San Bernardino County. Since then, Brockovich has advocated for communities affected by industrial pollution around the country, including the 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
On Sunday, PG&E tried and failed to reboot its Elkhorn battery facility.
According to Johnson, part of the reason for the rally is to voice opposition to PG&E going back online, mostly to quell people’s anxieties. When asked why the legal team was holding a public rally, he said they were there to support the community.
“What we know through our clients, and through people who aren’t our clients, that people are horrified by the reopening. They’ve been traumatized since January. They’ve had concerns about their health, their future health, and the toxins on their property. They’re really stressed. The anxiety is through the roof.”
In a legal battle like Moss Landing, where it is hard to find evidence that directly links an illness to an industrial accident, what is the firm’s strategy and claims?
“It’s really hard,” said Johnson.
He separated claims into two categories. A personal injury claim shows a direct link, like someone contracting a kidney disease after exposure to a certain chemical, he said.
“Then there’s a lot of people who just become intermittently ill, and they suffered what we would call nuisance damages,” he said. “The fire has made it very difficult to live where they are, even if they don’t have monetary damages. There are also clients who own property. They can get diminution in value. Their homes and properties are worth less than they were, or they have lost a substantial amount of business.”
A single judge will be assigned to coordinate all the legal cases and will manage all of the common facts and law, but the individual differences will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Community Survey Released
On May 30, the public health departments of Monterey and Santa Cruz counties released the results of a community survey. The agencies said the survey was needed for the counties to better understand health concerns related to the fire and encourage the participation of the public and local medical providers in county alert and advisory systems.
Immediately after the Jan. 16 fire, the county was encouraging people to visit their doctor if they felt symptoms, but it had a hard time collecting data, according to Monterey County Health Department spokesperson Karen Smith.
“We have a local surveillance goal,” Smith said in a Jan. 24 interview. “Some people did seek medical care in the days following the fire, but the proportion of emergency department visits due to air quality related symptoms did not significantly change from what we would expect prior to the fire and what we would expect to see at this time of year. It didn’t pop up.”
The May 30 survey revealed 83% of the 1,275 respondents experienced at least one health symptom following the fire, especially those people who lived closest to the fire who constituted the majority of those polled.
The survey also asked residents how they received information about the fire and evacuation. Forty-four percent of respondents indicated they received information through news reports, 31% received information from social media, 23% from neighbors or family and just 16% from a county alert system.
One week after the fire, more than 2,500 people had joined the Facebook group Never Again Moss Landing, where they documented their symptoms with photos and testimony. They attributed their symptoms to exposure to toxic fumes in the fire. Among the most common problems: burning eyes and lungs, sore throat, headaches, nosebleeds and bleeding gums. Several residents reported a metallic taste in their mouth.
Out of frustration with what they saw as a lack of public accountability, the group organized public protests and conducted a grassroots environmental test. Those results showed the pattern of the fire’s plume, which settled ash and particulate metals in the area around the facility.
Monterey County has continually shared all available environmental testing results with the public. The testing has shown the presence of battery metals in the soils and waterways near the fire, but whether they were present at dangerous levels is still inconclusive. Last month, Monterey County launched a new map-based data dashboard on its website.
Following the release of the dashboard, Vistra spokesperson Meranda Carter Cohn said the company is committed to working with local officials to ensure the safety of the community. Cohn said multiple agencies and organizations have monitored local air, water, and soil.
“To date, no risks to public health have been observed,” he said.
PG&E Attempts to Return Elkhorn Facility to Service
On May 7, PG&E notified the Monterey County Board of Supervisors in a letter that it had addressed the county’s safety concerns and plans to return the facility to operation to meet the power demands of the summer.
Monterey County responded by saying an emergency action plan it requested after the fire has not been finalized and remains under review.
“At this time, the county feels it is prudent to encourage PG&E to delay reactivation and continue to engage in additional open, transparent, dialogue with county officials, first responders, and the residents we collectively serve,” Monterey County’s statement said.
PG&E went ahead with the startup on Sunday, but there was a glitch when they began methodically returning the batteries to service.
“In the process, a clamp failure and coolant leak was identified in one of the 256 megapacks onsite,” said PG&E spokesperson Paul Doherty. “We are working to remediate the issue and out of an abundance of caution we are deferring the facility’s return to service until a later date.”
On the night of the fire, PG&E’s Elkhorn Battery Energy Storage Facility automatically disconnected from the grid when its infrared fire system detected flames from the neighboring Vistra facility, according to Doherty.
The following week, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors told PG&E that the Elkhorn system should remain offline until its emergency action plan falls within the standards of state law — a plan that involves coordinating with local first response agencies.
This article was written by Ruth Dusseault for Bay City News.
0 comments