Fire suppression chemicals linked to toxic groundwater at East Hampton battery plant

A fire broke out on 31 May 2023 at a battery energy storage plant on Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton, New York, described by the source as owned by NextEra Energy and National Grid. Firefighters fought the blaze for about 30 hours. Around 5,000 pounds of NOVEC 1230 fire-suppression gas were used in combination with an internal sprinkler system, alongside more than 1.4 million to 2.2 million gallons of water. New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation has preliminarily found that the combination of the suppression gas and the water produced the forever chemical PFPrA, measured at up to 10,000 parts per billion in groundwater just south of the plant, against a state health screening level of 3 parts per billion. Four Suffolk County Water Authority wells about 2,500 feet away were affected; the authority stopped using them and has sued the plant owners. Tests so far have not shown the plume affecting 27 private drinking water wells in the area. A final DEC report is expected in the autumn of 2026.

Preliminary DEC findings attribute the groundwater contamination primarily to the interaction of the NOVEC 1230 fire-suppression gas with the large volumes of firefighting water, rather than to the lithium-ion batteries themselves. The DEC said only 0.04 per cent of the batteries at the plant burned and that soil tests found no traces of heavy metals. The DEC commissioner said the 3M-made suppression system has since been discontinued, and that the state confirmed it was not used at other plants in New York that experienced fires. The exact cause of the thermal runaway fire has not been released.

1. Fire-suppression agents used at battery storage sites can interact with firefighting water to create persistent toxic byproducts, so suppression chemistry should be assessed for environmental risk as well as fire performance.
2. Regulators in this case noted that modular, containerised designs limit the impact of a fire compared with enclosed battery buildings, which is relevant to design choices at new sites.
3. Operators and fire services should agree in advance on protocols for air, soil and groundwater testing during and after an incident, since gaps in testing can delay identification of contamination and any public health response.
4. Post-incident communication matters: the local fire department said it was told an August 2026 alarm at the site was a false alarm but received no confirmation call back.

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