North County Fire: “Light smoke” coming from burned area at Vistra Battery facility

MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif. (KION) -- North Monterey County Fire confirms they're monitoring light smoke coming from an area around 6:30 Tuesday night that burned at the Vistra Battery storage facility.

As of Wednesday morning, no evacuation orders are being issued, according to the fire department. Local safety agencies are advising people to keep their windows and doors closed.

Although the smoke cleared Wednesday morning, officials are working together to make sure this doesn't happen again.

"We are currently working with Vistra on some plans to it's called delinking the batteries. And basically, what that does is it disconnects the batteries and that reduces the likelihood of propagation and the likelihood of a large fire," said Eric Sandusky with the US EPA.

Officials say the fire has rekindled in a part of the building that had already burned and has since intensified overnight, with some flames being visible. They add, that these batteries are burning under rubble and don't expect the flames to spread.

Air monitoring data is being received by the second.

"At this time, we have not seen any indication of adverse health effects to the public," said Sandusky.

The county says they are testing for metals, but won't be able to receive that data right away.

"The sampling data is a set of air that's pumped through a filter and then we have to send that off to a laboratory for analysis. And that typically takes a couple of weeks to get back, unfortunately. But that's, you know, the fastest we can get the data back and we're turning them around as fast as we possibly can," said Sandusky.

Although the county claims there is no risk to the public, they are advising extra safety measures.

"If required to be outdoors where smoke is present, individuals may consider wearing a well-fitted and 95 respirator. And of course, if you feel like you're having symptoms or if anything is of your concern, people should should visit their health care provide," said Ric Encarnacion, Director of Environmental Health.

The process of de-linking the batteries as a way to reduce fire risk will start this Saturday.

According to the County of Monterey, the flare-up lasted until about 3 a.m. Wednesday and has since died down. They also add air quality monitors have been consistently normal for the area. The county will have a further update at noon on Wednesday.

"What's important to note is that we have been continuously telling the public that this could happen because of the weather and the moisture in the air and humidity and whatnot from the rains, etc," County of Monterey Communications Director Nicholas Pasculli said. " We're here to protect and serve the community and that's what we're going to do."

North Monterey County Unified School District also sent out a message to parents, informing them all school are open today, according to Pasculli.

Meanwhile Vistra Energy is reassuring the community is doing all it can to aid first responders.

"Our first priority is the safety of our employees, the first responders and the community. You know, we will get through this, you know, this rekindling now and, you know, reassess the situation," Vistra Energy VP of Renewables Mark McDaniels said.

North County Fire says a drone is being deployed to investigate the smoke but so far they don't see flames at the scene.

Some nearby residents expressed concerns surrounding the new activity at the site.

"I woke my dad up. He lives in, like, South Watsonville, not that far from the Monterey County line", Santa Cruz County native Zenith Star said. "I know he sleeps with them open. You know, there's some there's some bad stuff which at the time was blowing north and, you know, you don't want to be breathing that."

The fire agency says air monitoring measures are still in place around the Vistra site from when the fire started back on January 16. As of Tuesday night, the EPA said they haven't seen air quality drop below moderate on the Air Quality Index.

High levels of cobalt, Vistra fire relief discussed during most recent news briefing

The first results of data samples and updates on relief efforts for those affected by the Vistra fire took up much of the latest County of Monterey news briefing on Wednesday afternoon.

According to the Monterey County Environmental Health Bureau, a new update finds high levels of cobalt in soil samples in preliminary data collected next to the Vistra energy site.

The County of Monterey heard an update from the Environmental Health Bureau that has preliminary data, showing high levels of cobalt above screening levels and higher than other metals tested for.

That includes nickel, manganese and copper, which were at the normal amounts found within the soil.

Yet, water samples didn't exceed the maximum containment levels of these chemicals.

This comes after San Jose State University's Moss Landing Marina Laboratory discovered high amounts of nickel, cobalt, and manganese (NCM) nanoparticles in the soils at the Elkhorn Reserve Slough near the Moss Landing Power Plant.

However, these results from the samples collected by County on Monterey Environmental Health are not the end-all, be-all.

"Do not misconstrue what we released to the public as final results. It is a piece of a piece of a puzzle," Environmental Health Bureau Ricardo Encarnacion said.

"Many people would be hesitant on the professional side to release pieces of information while we are putting together the puzzle," Encarnacion said. "But I think in this day and age and from what we learned in recent years, it is important to put out information to the public.”

In related news, Brad Watson of Vistra Energy delivered an update on the fire relief distribution for those affected by the Vistra Energy fire.

Evacuees could get a $750 gift card from Vistra Energy after the fire at the plant led to evacuations to be issued to areas near the fire.

After two successful distribution events on February 1 and February 3, Watson announced a future distribution event for this month. This comes after Vistra found that those living near evacuation zones at the evacuation site were affected by road closures.

Business owners in the evacuation zones or located and operating out of Moss Landing Harbor can also make claims on the Moss Landing Response website.

Examples of what can be covered in cost by Vistra include lost revenues, employee wages for between January 17 to 22, and spoilage of fresh food.

Owners who wish to submit a claim can do so at the link provided: www.mosslandingresponse.com/business-claims