MAHOPAC, N.Y.—While it wasn't the only issue in Mahopac in 2024, the proposed battery energy storage system on Miller Road provided the through line for much of the year, animating town board meetings and social media with its ripples continuing to be felt to this day. It wasn't the only charged issue, however, as you'll see from our rundown of top stories starting today. As we look back at 2024, everyone at Mahopac News wishes all our readers a happy and healthy 2025!
Battery Farm Electrifies Debate
If the ERT battle between local and county law enforcement was the year’s first local debate, it was no way near as charged as the argument over a 116-megawatt BESS proposed by Charlottesville, Virginia-based East Point Energy for a 90-acre plot of land near Miller Road.
Just a look at our headlines tells a story. It started innocently enough. After we had reported the project was before the Planning Board in 2023, our March 14 page 6 update seemed innocuous. The headline “Battery storage project moves closer to public hearing” was underlined by a subheading about a state study finding “Fires at battery farms don’t present environmental danger.”
The first controversy started in Somers when Baldwin Place residents discovered that the planned facility was within 200 feet of their backyards. The issue made the March 28 front page: “Sparks are flying: Somers neighborhood charged up over proposed Mahopac ‘battery farm.’”
The groundswell against the BESS built from there, with Carmel Town Board Meetings becoming increasingly crowded with residents opposed to the project. On April 11, we noted that Somers Supervisor Robert Scorrano had sent a “sharply worded” letter opposing the Miller Road project to Carmel officials and others.
“The project has sparked significant opposition and apprehension among the residents of Somers and Carmel, and my office has been inundated with countless calls from both towns in the past few weeks,” Scorrano wrote.
After trying to voice their concerns at Town Board meetings, residents took to the streets, as reported in our April 25 edition, first along Route 118 in Baldwin Place and later in Downtown Mahopac. A Facebook group dedicated to stopping the project was launched, eventually gaining more than 3,500 members.
“I will not rest until I know that my family, my neighbors, and our entire town are safe,” Mahopac resident Lauren Rosiland said at the Town Board’s April 17 meeting.
A public Q&A with East Point in early May did little to assuage fears. Mahopac resident and former Town Board candidate Jerome Mitchell summed up many of the responses.
“They did not answer any questions or concerns,” he said. “It was a PR piece.”
Things got even more heated in May, with the front page headline: “‘Battery farm’ property owner receives death threats.”
Also in May, the Town Board—which had been criticized for initially trying to silence discussion of the project, arguing it was legally barred from commenting on a project before the Planning Board—decided to get involved after all and set a public hearing to place a moratorium on BESSes in the town.
The hearing at the June 19 Town Board meeting drew hundreds of audience members. Dozens came to the podium to speak out against that project.
Mahopac resident Kathleen McKenzie called the proposed project “a money and power grab from a predatory foreign oil and gas company, the state of New York, and landowners, at the expense of our health, safety, and wellbeing.”
The Town Board unanimously approved a six-month moratorium, along with one barring solar farms.
Carmel didn’t wait for the moratorium to expire to take more lasting action. After a brief public hearing at the Town Board’s Oct. 16 meeting, the board unanimously voted to adopt a zoning law that would prohibit large-scale (Tier 2, over 600kwH) BESSes from being built within the town’s borders. Smaller Tier 1 BESS systems will still be permitted.
In Part 3: We'll look at more of 2024's top local stories.
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