Vistra Moss Landing fire: No more false assurances

At a recent press conference Monterey County officials assured the community that there is no present danger to the public or the environment from toxic fallout from the Vistra fire that burned for two days, consuming 80% of the 100,000 lithium-ion batteries and much of the cement warehouse.

But is this really true? I only personally believe Administrative Officer Sonia De La Rosa’s halting words, “There are no guarantees,” which she repeated several times.

Preliminary test results from San Jose State University showed extremely elevated levels of toxic metals, as compared to previous baseline testing. Independent community testing of soil samples also revealed high levels of heavy metal contamination. Community members continue to experience health symptoms in up to a 30 mile radius of the fire. The soil in the agricultural fields has still not been tested. Water wells are also a concern following the recent heavy rain, and the disaster site not cleaned up yet.

I have seen this playbook before! The community deserves better than this. We need support and not false assurances.

— Satya Orion, Soquel

Battery fire ‘our canary in the coal mine’ moment

The fire at the Vistra energy storage plant in Moss Landing is our “canary in the coal mine” moment. The powers to be best pay attention.

— Frank Tarrantts, Santa Cruz

Insist on safeguards against battery fires

Regarding the recent battery fire at Moss Landing, there are clear and straightforward solutions so that this never happens again. This is a bounded problem with very few unknowns. The battery makers and commercial users of these items understand them well. They certainly know all about their chosen battery’s propensity to catch fire and burn with great heat output. Effective fire suppression must be part of the contract. If these large assemblies need more spacing, or need more fire walls, or need special methods of heat dissipation, the builders must know this and provide it in the electrical storage structure.

Use of batteries for electrical energy storage will likely be with us forever. The permitters of such storage facilities must insist that there are guaranteed and provable safeguards against catastrophes such as just we witnessed. These are very specific assemblies of well-understood components.

— Robert Heathcote Russell, Santa Cruz

Appeasement over Ukraine echoes 1938 Munich pact

In September 1938 the British government, as the world’s then-leading power, negotiated the Munich Agreement ceding the Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. This was done over the objection and nonparticipation of Czechoslovakia in exchange for the specious promise by Germany to end its claim for all of Czechoslovakia. This infamous surrender of territory fixed the meaning of appeasement — making concessions to an aggressor to avoid war.

Today we have the prospect of the United States conceding — in advance of any negotiation — that Ukraine has “no choice” but to surrender territory together with the knowledge that its new borders would not be protected by the withdrawn promise of NATO membership. To date Russia has occupied 20% of Ukraine, using various pretexts — one being the laughable de-Nazification of Ukraine’s government. If the U.S. chooses to withdraw its support, Ukraine’s valiant resistance will collapse. That will not be Ukraine’s choice. Rather it will be the predicable consequence of appeasement jointly imposed by Trump and Putin to Russia’s favor signaling that secure borders mean nothing and aggression wins.

— Doug Urbanus, Ben Lomond

‘Imperialist America ... at it again’ ... and again

Imperialist America, the big-footed hegemon, is at it again. Not bad enough that our fearless leader has the truck backed up to the loading docks of Greenland, Panama and Canada, now his royal highness is dictating when and where the ethnically-cleansed people of Gaza can resettle. Because Gaza, you see, is now a “demolition site,” thanks to Biden and his American-made weapons.

It is no surprise that the rest of the world is getting a little fed up with the USA sticking its nose under every tent. I mean, who asked ya?

— Tim Rudolph, Santa Cruz