TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. – Terra-Gen Vice President Mark Turner has fired back against opponents of the proposed 250-megawatt system on Hurley Avenue at the site of the former Coleman High School, saying that reports and audit findings of California lithium-ion battery installations have been overblown.
Opponents have said that the report should be a cautionary tale for the proposal at the former Catholic high school site, which would become New York state’s largest electricity storage facility. Earlier this month, opponents presented to the Town Board a volume of reports involving the lithium-ion battery developer, including a 2025 inspection showing safety and emergency readiness failures, found by the California Public Utilities Commission at the Edwards Sanborn Solar and Battery Energy Storage
In emails to the Freeman, Turner said that, “Regarding the Kern County incident reports, they demonstrate…that while no energy infrastructure can eliminate the possibility of an incident, facilities are designed so that impacts remain confined to the affected equipment and do not result in identified hazardous conditions beyond the project boundary.”
Turner described the California inspections of the site as involving “operational compliance and housekeeping items” and provided the Freeman with a copy that was sent to the state.
“The battery-related thermal incidents discussed publicly (by opponents) were associated with a specific manufacturer’s equipment deployed at the Edwards Sanborn and Valley Center facilities,” Turner wrote. “Terra-Gen has not experienced a thermal incident involving other battery technologies deployed across its operating fleet. The manufacturer has implemented an ongoing assessment, inspection, and replacement program for that equipment, which is no longer being deployed in the market and is not part of the configuration proposed for the Town of Ulster.”
California officials wrote that the state Electric Safety and Reliability Branch was sent on April 21-24, 2025, to identify “potential violations” and the report then required a response by July 31, 2025, to explain “corrective actions and preventive measures…to resolve the violations.”
Terra-Gen is seeking to use 12 acres of the 15-acre 430 Hurley Ave. former Coleman site for an array of battery enclosure “groupings.” Although details have not been finalized, enclosure groupings typically measure up to 100 feet long by 8 feet wide, or up to 70 feet long and up to 16 feet wide, with heights reaching up to 20 feet.
Turner emphasized that the equipment in the enclosure worked as designed when fire events occurred at both the 3.3-gigawatt Edwards site and the 130-megawatt Valley Center location.
“The CPUC audit reviewed a broad range of operational and administrative matters at one of the nation’s largest solar and battery storage facilities,” he wrote. “The findings cited publicly primarily involved operational compliance and housekeeping items such as documentation practices, inspection tagging, signage, emergency lighting, (emergency response plan) document placement, and storage practices. Several items were corrected during the inspection itself. Importantly, the audit did not conclude that Terra-Gen’s battery facilities were operating unsafely.”
Jillian Fried, who is leading opposition to the Hurley Ave. site proposal, considers California’s own descriptions of 12 significant problems involving 27 violations directly contradicting Turner’s contentions. Beyond noting that state officials required a “Corrective Action Plan with a description and completion date of each action and measure completed,” she said that Terra-Gen’s May 22 letter attempts to make equipment failures seem like successes despite Kern County fire officials concerns listed in various reports.
“Firefighters were advised in one of the incident reports to stay 1,000 feet away,” she said, pointing to a July 14, 2024, incident. “The reason? Because of the toxic smoke and the gases that are put off by these fires. That’s why.”
Fried said smoke findings in the firefighters’ report should give Ulster town officials pause, as they won’t have Kern County’s advantage of “wind…out of the west pushing the smoke east where there were no homes for 20 to 30 miles” in the Mojave Desert.
“Our community doesn’t have the luxury to have a safe barrier in between us and the facility because there are homes 300 to 350 feet away,” she said.
Plan opponent Tim Kelly didn’t find Turner’s May 22 letter reassuring.
“The reported issues included high voltage maintenance tracking failures, missed daily inspection entries, confusing and outdated ‘do not operate’ tags, emergency lighting failures, missing fire extinguisher signs, fire extinguishers without monthly inspection tags, inadequate evacuation mapping, outdated emergency contact information, missing emergency response documents, and improper storage of hazardous waste and gas cylinders,” he said. “If this is what Terra-Gen calls routine housekeeping, then the Town Board should ask what Terra-Gen considers serious.”
California officials in the report on Edwards’ violation had a list of 72 reviewed documents for the inspection, including “root cause analysis of all reportable incidents, if any” for safety, operations, and maintenance categories. Opponents of the proposed Hurley Avenue site believe that town of Ulster officials should also want to see those findings.
“Terra-Gen should be required to produce complete root cause analyses, corrective action reports, incident reports, emergency response records, audit responses, equipment specifications, manufacturer histories, and any internal or third-party safety assessments for every documented thermal event or serious compliance issue involving its battery facilities,” Kelly said. “Not summaries. Not talking points. The actual documents.”
Town of Ulster Citizens Chairperson Regis Obijiski is also concerned that Terra-Gen’s defense of its California facilities is similar to its attitude when dealing with requests for information about its New York plans. He said there are significant credibility problems for the project application if people need to find out how a company has handled its existing facilities.
“If you slipped up, and we’re all part of humanity, say it and say it before I discover it,” he said. “Tell me what you’ve learned from it, and I’ll have so much respect. But, if I have to dig because you’re shading or mollifying or you’re not telling the complete story, it promotes distrust. That’s what we’re talking about here.”