Lawsuit filed over Moss Landing power plant fire
(KRON) — A lawsuit was filed Thursday on behalf of local residents impacted by the January 16 fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant. An inferno ignited inside a building that is part of Vistra's Battery Energy Storage System. Lithium batteries stacked inside the building caught fire, and flames spread from one battery to another, county supervisors said.
The lawsuit alleges that the facility's owner, Vistra Energy, along with Pacific Gas & Electric, LG Energy Solution, and other corporate entities, failed to implement adequate fire safety measures, including thermal runaway prevention.
'Defendants knew they were using dangerous lithium-ion batteries, housing them in what they knew was the most dangerous way, and ignored the safety of the community for their own profit,' attorneys with the law firm Singleton Schreiber wrote.
The batteries burned for days and sent plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky.
Lead attorney Gerald Singleton said, 'Communities living near these facilities deserve better safeguards, transparency, and accountability. Energy sustainability should never come at the expense of public safety.'
In addition to the lawsuit, environmental advocate Erin Brockovich is lending her expertise and voice to ensure that residents receive answers, medical monitoring, and compensation.
The Moss Landing BESS used thousands of lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide batteries that are more prone to thermal instability than newer alternatives like lithium-ion phosphate batteries, the suit states. Vistra employees reported that the fire suppression system failed on the day of the fire because of its poor design, according to the lawsuit.
A spokesperson for PG&E told KRON4, 'The fire at the Vistra Moss Landing power plant on January 16, 2025, was not a PG&E incident. PG&E is committed to providing safe, clean, and reliable energy for all.'
Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church wrote, 'The reason Moss Landing is now a site for battery storage facilities dates to the 1940s. When (PG&E) built the Moss Landing Power Plant in 1949, it quickly became the largest power plant on the West Coast. It was that elaborate electrical infrastructure that prompted Vistra to settle on Moss Landing as the site for what would be the largest BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems) facility in the world. In 2019 and 2020, three permits were granted for two BESS facilities at Moss Landing. One is operated by Vistra with LG batteries. The other is operated by PG&E with Tesla batteries.'
Church continued, 'Both operations were approved by the Monterey County Planning Commission. All the proponents — business, labor, environmentalists, state officials and others — spoke glowingly of this wonderful, safe technology that would move us to a sustainable, carbon-free world. It is now embarrassingly and painfully obvious that the guarantees made were simply naïve and impossible to keep.'
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Lithium-ion battery fires release a mix of toxic gases, including hydrogen fluoride. Heavy metals may have contaminated surrounding soil and water sources, researchers said. Scientists with San Jose State University's Moss Landing Marine Laboratories detected unusually high concentrations of heavy-metal nanoparticles in marsh soils at Elkhorn Slough.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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