Scientists Detect Heavy Metals in Environmentally Sensitive Elkhorn Slough After Battery Storage Plant Fire

by | Jan 29, 2025 | Featured

Research scientists at San José State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) examined the marsh soil properties at Elkhorn Slough Reserve. Photo courtesy of Ivano Aiello.

Research scientists at San José State University’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) have detected unusually high concentrations of heavy-metal nanoparticles in marsh soils at Elkhorn Slough Reserve following the recent fire at the nearby Vistra Power Plant’s lithium-ion battery storage facility.

As part of a decade-long monitoring program of the Elkhorn Slough estuary, the research team of Ivano Aiello, department chair and professor of geological oceanography at MLML, analyzed the marsh soil properties, including the composition of major and trace elements, in the days immediately following the Vistra battery fire that began on Thursday, January 16. The fire burned for several days, causing road closures, evacuation of the area and air quality concerns.

The field surveys, conducted within a radius of approximately two miles from the power plant, measured a dramatic increase in marsh soil surface concentration (hundreds- to thousand-fold) of the three heavy metals nickel, manganese and cobalt. This dramatic increase relates to both the shallow subsurface and the baseline measurements conducted in the area before the fire. Samples of the heavy-metal layer were examined at high magnification and reveal that these metals are contained in nanoparticles that range in diameter between about 1 and 20 microns.

These nanoparticles are used in cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, commonly referred to as “NMC” (nickel manganese cobalt), clearly connecting the occurrence of the heavy metals to airborne cathode material from the Vistra battery fire. These heavy metals will chemically transform as they move through the environments and potentially through the food web, affecting local aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.

Monterey County officials have been made aware of the team’s findings.

“These findings and the research that follows are crucial not only to the impacted community but to the national and international community because of the need to store more power and thus build more and larger battery storage facilities,” says Aiello. “This is a new and fast-growing technology, and we must understand the ecological impacts in the event that accidents like this happen again.”

Aiello’s team and colleagues at SJSU and the Elkhorn Slough Reserve will continue monitoring the soils and waterways on a short-and long-term basis.