After three years of listening to an energy project developer from Delaware tell the citizens of Wendell how they have “reached out to a wide range of stakeholders and neighbors” in our town, we have decided to reach out to the developer and ask them to gather up their plans and leave.

In 2021, Borrego, doing business as Wendell Energy Storage 1 LLC, wrote our Planning Board that because they needed a variance from our bylaws, they were going to go directly to the state Department of Public Utilities to seek zoning exemptions from our local rules. “As you know,” Borrego told the Planning Board, “variances are a disfavored form of relief and highly susceptible to challenge.”

So Borrego decided its “best approach” was to entirely bypass Wendell review and go directly to the state. Borrego said there would still be “ample and appropriate opportunities for our continuing coordination and collaboration.”

Because there has been no real collaboration, our citizens group, No Assault & Batteries, decided to send a letter to the company urging them to withdraw their project to install a 105-megawatt standalone Battery Energy Storage System proposed for 68 Wendell Depot Road on a 51-acre parcel of predominately forested land. It has no accompanying solar energy installation to transmit power to the battery system.

On May 1, 2024, the citizens of Wendell voted 101-1 in favor of a general bylaw creating licensing requirements for battery energy storage systems, and limiting their size to 10 megawatts. On June 10, we addressed the dangers of lithium-ion battery storage when we delivered 370 signatures to the governor saying that “an independent and thorough investigation of the causes and prevention of battery fires must take place before any of these energy storage systems are installed in Massachusetts.”

The lawyers for Wendell Energy Storage 1 LLC sent a letter to the attorney general dated June 10, in which it was stated: “The Proponent has worked actively and comprehensively to identify and address concerns of Wendell officials and other stakeholders … conducted numerous follow-up meetings with a broad range of Wendell officials.”

A year earlier, on April 11, 2023, their attorneys said the same thing: “The company … remains committed to addressing concerns of town officials, area landowners and other stakeholders.”

This developer claims it has been seeking “comments and suggestions on how best to proceed.” But in point of fact, we stakeholders and neighbors of this project know that none of our comments and suggestions have been heard.

Wendell Energy Storage 1 LLC, has actively and comprehensively ignored the significant opposition to the nature and scale of this battery proposal, which has failed to receive a supportive vote from any public body in Wendell, including the Planning Board, the Conservation Commission, the Board of Health, and the Selectboard. A wide range of stakeholders have told the proponent clearly that this is the wrong project, at the wrong scale, in the wrong place. After three years, they are still not listening.

The developer’s statements to the DPU and to AG about its “outreach to the town” have been inaccurate and misleading, demonstrating a continued attempt to pursue an energy project which is widely disparaged and opposed by the residents and taxpayers of our town.

The developers have failed to address the major liabilities Wendell faces if this battery storage project has a thermal runaway accident. They have been unable to convince us that the lithium-ion technology is not a public safety risk to our residents and our environment.

If the small group of investors in these power companies truly want to “address concerns,” they will begin looking for a community that welcomes them rather than one which is united in opposition to their plans.

We are asking these companies to respect the nearly unanimous vote of our citizens at our May 1 Town Meeting, rather than forcing this project on our small, rural community. If this project is ever built, it will have to be decommissioned and torn down 25 years from now, at great expense. Why not save the time and money to build — and then tear down — this wildly unpopular project?

We request this handful of investors to withdraw their petition from the DPU, and let the citizens of our small town go back to the rest of their daily business — without fear of a disastrous battery fire.

Laurel Facey is a member of the Coordinating Committee of Wendell No Assault & Batteries. For more background on this project, go to https://nabunited.org/.