MOSS LANDING >> County officials reaffirmed testing has not shown any risks to public health following the Moss Landing Battery Plant fire in January.

The California Department of Toxic Substance Control completed their initial sampling, reporting there are no elevated heavy metals associated with the fire in the soil that would harm the community. During the county briefing Wednesday, Director of Environmental Health Ric Encarnacion said the initial samples showed elevated levels of heavy metals like nickel, manganese, cobalt and copper. But the county’s more intensive samples of the actual soil, did not.County agencies continue to monitor polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a group of chemicals formed during the incomplete burning of organic materials such as wood, coal, oil and gasoline.

“While initial surface screens of ash and debris detected elevated levels of metals, subsequent soil samples did not,” Encarnacion said. “Out of an abundance of caution, the Department of Toxic Substances Control recommends additional sampling directly north of the site to further evaluate some elevated concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which may or may not be fire-related, and an evaluation of background soil cobalt concentrations. This will allow for a deeper understanding of the potentially impacted land.”

Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and county air pollution control said there is a team onsite monitoring air quality 24 hours a day and have not reported significant changes that would impact public health.

Research scientists at San Jose State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories did a soil sample in the days following the fire, and released study in late January reporting “unusually high” concentrations of heavy-metals nanoparticles in marsh soils, including Nickel, Manganese and Cobalt.

Several county officials said they did not read the study, and could not comment directly on it, but that XR screening — which was used by both the science researchers and Substance Control — could only give a reading in a small area. Whereas the county’s testing was deeper into the soil, according the Department of Environmental Health.