This is the most alarming and astonishing thing I’ve heard in a while, and I only heard of it thanks to catching a quick snippet of mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa going off about it.
Visualize New York City proper for a moment. Got that picture in your head? The crowded streets, the cheek-by-jowl buildings of residents and businesses that make up any given neighborhood in a borough?
Hardly room to sling a cat, right? And a building fire is always a frightening event, thanks to street constraints and the ever-present worry of containment, thanks to the proximity of other buildings and multiple floors.
Now. Guess what the Green grifting lunatics have approved – not planned, but approved – for those same neighborhoods, as if they were putting in a convenient bodega or a mini-gym.
The ‘City of Yes’ is a City of Insanity.
They want to drop Chernobyl-style lithium ion battery plants in the middle of our neighborhoods. These ticking time bombs don’t belong anywhere near families, schools or homes.
I’m the ONLY candidate for mayor standing up against this… pic.twitter.com/dMUl7Wdlih
— Curtis Sliwa (@CurtisSliwa) August 18, 2025
…They want to drop Chernobyl-style lithium ion battery plants in the middle of our neighborhoods. These ticking time bombs don’t belong anywhere near families, schools or homes.
I’m the ONLY candidate for mayor standing up against this reckless plan.
The outer boroughs are being treated like a dumping ground and I’ll fight tooth and nail to stop it.
Wait, WHUT
Sliwa is 100% correct in that these are approved for the outer boroughs like Brooklyn – you’re not going to see one in Manhattan – and holy SMOKES!
Look how close the houses are in this neighborhood to the walls of a battery storage facility already under construction in Brooklyn!
As the reporter says, the storage facility is ‘just feet’ from an apartment building.
It’s unbelievable the utter disregard shown for the safety of residents in the area. And they’ve got another planned for only two blocks down the street from this one when they raze a line of derelict storefronts. That will back up to a whole line of charming older houses if and when it’s built out.
The neighbors started protesting and doing everything they could to raise awareness months ago. But, as they were never informed what was being dropped literally in their backyards by the state and city, it’s been an uphill battle, and they were already – by design, no doubt – late to the fight.
Brooklyn residents are furious about lithium ion battery warehouses being built in residential communities. Along with hundreds of concerned residents, I attended the local civic meeting to meet with those whose backyards are right along this dangerous warehouse.
FDNY and local… pic.twitter.com/VvOsC2Uvkw
— Curtis Sliwa (@CurtisSliwa) March 10, 2025
…FDNY and local residents were not properly warned, nor were they able to oppose this dangerous warehouse. Residents and myself expressed immense safety concerns. If this facility sparks on fire (as they commonly do), the community would be decimated.
FDNY cannot use water to put out a fire from a lithium ion battery plant, it’s more lethal. The company NineDot and the landlord must be held accountable.
These warehouses should only exist in open areas, not along residents backyards. I will stand with you every step of the way to prevent these plants from being built in your backyard. As Mayor, I will mandate community input on major developments that threaten communities. You deserve to be heard.
There was a fire already this week involving the batteries, which is only serving to highlight the residents’ fears of a large-scale installation and the potential catastrophe if something catches fire.
A home in Queens was lost the night before last after a basement loaded with over 100 lithium-ion batteries caught fire and burned out of control.
Lithium-ion batteries are to blame after a home business went up in flames in Queens, the FDNY says.
Firefighters responded to the home on Pidgeon Meadow Road around 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
They discovered about 100 lithium-ion batteries burning in the cellar of the home. Police said the owner was operating an illegal lithium-ion battery repair business.
Over 100 Lithium-ion batteries catch fire in cellar of Queens home https://t.co/sDYFj24KdI pic.twitter.com/xROkqmIi6y
— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) August 19, 2025
Investigators believe they were e-bike batteries the fellow was ‘repairing,’ and it’s sheer luck this was a single-family, detached home instead of an apartment or townhouse.
Now imagine if they were industrial-sized storage batteries all lined up next to your apartment building.
Great googly moogly.
There is some light on the horizon for residents in the midst of this fight, though, as it’s caught the attention of former New York congressman and current EPA head Lee Zeldin, who, according to reports, can’t believe what he’s hearing about NY’s plans.
New Yorkers fighting the opening of massive battery energy plants in their neighborhoods have a powerful new ally: US Environmental Protection Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Zeldin, the former Long Island congressman, will be holding a press conference in Hauppauge Monday to discuss environmental safety issues posed by “Battery Energy Storage Systems,” which are hazardous when they catch fire.
While not explicitly opposing BESS, Zeldin is set to issue a new EPA guidance for communities and local governments to consider regarding the environmental risks of such facilities.
…He blasted the “delusional” and unrealistic green energy goals advanced by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Albany Democrats amid the backlash against the proliferation of battery storage plants across New York, including Staten Island, Queens, the Hudson Valley and upstate.
“Residents are looking across the country where dangerous lithium battery fires at BESS facilities have caused widespread damage, and they are concerned with New York’s partisan push to fill yet another of its delusional ‘green’ goals, which the state itself admits it cannot meet,” Zeldin said.
It’s sheer, criminal lunacy.
Many New Yorkers have been telling New York State NO to Battery Energy Storage Systems in their neighborhoods. Legitimate concerns over emergency response and safety from lithium fires are being ignored in pursuit of impossible climate targets the state knows it cannot hit. https://t.co/Mmo3e0gMV4
— Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) August 18, 2025
The cavalier attitude of the battery storage climate cultist in the news report and the company representative’s assurances aside, maybe the folks in Brooklyn and the other affected boroughs should start researching all of the fires we’ve covered here. For example, the massive Moss Landing fire in Monterey this past January?
Besides depositing all manner of toxic heavy metals into a pristine estuary and on people’s lawns, homes, and gardens, they are just NOW planning to begin the removal of the burnt batteries, starting next month.
Burnt batteries are going to be removed from the Vistra Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility starting in September, and cleanup will likely continue for a year. That’s according to Kazami Brockman, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s on-scene coordinator who spoke at a Monterey County press event this week.
It’s taken nine months to get to this point. And the environmental and health impacts are still to be determined.
No one lived ‘just a few feet’ from Moss Landing.
What are they going to do when one of these smaller facilities erupts in a densely packed city neighborhood?
New Jersey might want to think about that, too.
Why is this lithium battery storage station so close to homes in the first place?
“Atlantic City Electric is preparing to activate its first energy storage system, an emerging technology in electric production, at the site of a decommissioned substation in Beach Haven.
With… pic.twitter.com/9o1J5uJ1Dn
— Wake Up NJ 🇺🇸 New Jersey (@wakeupnj) August 13, 2025
It’s for sure a question I’d be asking those mayoral candidates…not that it mattered.
But at least get them on record.
Holy smokes.
