TOWN OF ULSTER, N.Y. >> Die-hard environmentalists and local Democrats strongly criticized two state lawmakers who said they found no safety risks from a proposed 250-megawatt lithium-ion battery facility at the site of the former Coleman High School, which is adjacent to populated areas.

Officials and residents criticized state Sen. Michelle Hinchey and state Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha on Thursday and Friday about their answers to risk concerns raised by residents.

“Support of (Terra-Gen) is surprising and very new and not thoughtful and they probably have the political pressure put upon (them),” said former Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency board Chairman Regis Obijiski.

“I was actually floored by that… they would want to, in a sense, by their premature support of this, get in the way of this town process.”

Shrestha denied on Friday that the press release on Thursday was an endorsement of Terra-Gen’s application, although she stood by the press release saying she and Hinchey “hope to see a strong and detailed community benefits agreement for this project.”

Obijiski, who has spent years encouraging reductions in fossil fuel use, found the frequently asked questions sections of the lawmakers’ press release to raise more concerns.“If the developer is that good and that safe, how about (reviewing them) for this site?” he said. “It could be a good idea, but the wrong site.”

Hurley town Supervisor Michael Boms said he was particularly troubled that Shrestha considers him as being “fossil fuel propagandized” because he considers the Terra-Gen project not to be suitable for siting in a populated area. He said that even the lawmakers’ press release supporting the project acknowledged that there is a risk of fire, although it was couched to sound like a remote possibility.

Boms and Hurley officials had recently written a letter to local, state and federal officials on both sides of the political aisle, calling for a pause on the proposed facility.

“The safety concerns and the fact that it’s put into the middle of a residential area to me is wrong,” he said. “They said that only 1% of all the (battery energy storage systems) have had a fire. That, to me, is still not safe.”

Shrestha and Hinchey, in their press release, wrote that “major safety incidents at battery storage facilities have historically been rare, affecting less than 1% of the total U.S. capacity.”

Complaints about the press release also include how its “questions” section reads closely to answers given by Terra-Gen in its public relations defense of issues raised by concerned residents. Answers in some cases also appear to be directly copied from several industry sources, with even the sentence on safety and capacity appearing verbatim from the online publication Power in a Feb. 3, 2025, story written by Ric O’Connell.

Additionally, project opponent Tim Kelly pointed to two contracts that Terra-Gen signed for lobbying, including with Dan House, who was an aide for Hinchey’s father, the late U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, for nearly 15 years. Ahouse, as owner of Stockade Strategies, will receive $5,000 per month while a second firm, Focus Media, will receive $15,000 per month for media relations services and “local governmental relations” services.

“Looks like they’re spreading $20K a month on this in lobbying,” Kelly said.

“I am a state legislator who works in Albany, which is the best place to go if you want to meet and hear from all kinds of industry lobbyists,” Shrestha said on Friday. “It is also the best place to go if you want to witness what a lobbyist said and then you want to hear it coming out of the mouth of politicians.”

Kelly was among several people who said Shrestha is falsely labelling opponents as echoing the “fossil fuel industry to…evoke people’s worst fears,” adding that the assemblymember was being “premature and misleading” with claims about safety.

“A 250 (megawatt) project of this scale has never been tested in a residential area as densely populated as the neighborhoods surrounding the Ulster site,” he said. “Even with modern fire codes, battery fires remain unpredictable and extremely difficult to control and incidents across the country, including at facilities thought to be compliant, show that no system is risk-free.”

Hinchey did not return requests on Thursday or Friday for an interview, while Shrestha did not call on Thursday but on Friday did discuss her position.

Shresta said that the fossil-fuel industry’s talking points are possibly being done without the Terra-Gen opponents apparently aware of it.

“The information that is spread…focusing on fear mongering has become so ingrained in our conversations that we don’t even know or don’t even have to know where it’s coming from,” she said.

Shrestha said that Terra-Gen, which states it owns and operates seven battery facilities in California, will have a more difficult time in New York with efforts to build the state’s largest lithium-ion storage facility.

“What’s important is that New York has fairly advanced fire codes and standards these types of projects must follow,” she said in the press release.

Shrestha said she thinks that opponents who disagree with the choice of the former John A. Coleman High School property have an incorrect perception of the site.

“The reason people think this is an inappropriate location is because people have not understood that it is not the type of location that can spread fire,” she said.

“In New York City, which is so much more denser than the site we’re talking about, energy storage projects have already gone live, Shrestha said. “They’re already operational.”

When pressed for locations, Shrestha said: “The one I’m thinking about is in the Bronx. It’s 100 megawatts.”

Information from various sources shows that actually the Bronx has two small battery systems — at 3.08 megawatt and 4.29 megawatts — but there is a 100-megawatt system is actually in Astoria, Queens. The large system is part of a reuse effort for the former Charles Poletti Power Project that had an oil and natural gas-fired electricity generating plant.

Shrestha also complained that Terra-Gen opponents are unfairly comparing a Jan. 16, 2025, lithium-ion fire at Moss Landing, California, where about 1,200 people were evacuated, with the type of facility being proposed for Hurley Avenue. The proposed site would have over 300 industrial batteries in individual containers that each would have a fire suppression system while the Moss Landing fire, which was in a converted natural gas-fired electricity plant, could not be extinguished by firefighters and had to burn itself out over several days.