Letter: AES/Crossvine Solar and BESS project safety concerns

I am writing to raise urgent public-safety concerns about the AES/Crossvine Solar and Battery Energy Storage System project in Dubois County. The full complement of 92 twenty-foot BESS units is now reportedly on site, yet several critical safety and emergency-response conditions appear to remain unresolved.

The BESS units appear to be spaced only two to three feet apart and are apparently being temporarily stored on site while waiting on construction. The water tank or tower AES proposed for firefighting has not been built. Electronic safety monitoring does not appear to be in place. AES-provided training has not yet been provided to county firefighters, police officers, EMTs, and other first responders. Construction of the AES substation needed to connect the BESS to the grid has not started, and not one solar panel has been mounted.

These facts should concern every resident. School is in session, and local schools are less than two miles from the BESS site. If a thermal runaway event forced an evacuation, what psychological effect would that have on children, teachers, and families? Would parents feel compelled to pull their children from Southwest School Corporation schools because they believe the community failed to prevent an avoidable risk?

Company executives and elected officials do not have the right to determine what risks are acceptable for the children of our community. That right and responsibility belongs to parents, and to parents only.

AES’s own plume study reportedly states that hydrogen fluoride concentrations at the BESS could reach up to 522 parts per million during a thermal runaway event. For perspective, NIOSH lists the Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health level for hydrogen fluoride at 30 parts per million, and OSHA’s chemical database lists a permissible exposure limit of 3 ppm as an eight-hour time-weighted average. Those figures should make clear that this is not a minor planning detail; it is a serious public-health and emergency-response issue.

Parents of schoolchildren and nearby residents also deserve to know what the Acute Exposure Guideline Levels could potentially be at the schools and surrounding residential areas during a worst-case thermal runaway event. Specifically, AES and county officials should publicly disclose the modeled AEGL-2 levels, which indicate concentrations above which serious, long-lasting health effects or an impaired ability to escape could occur, and the modeled AEGL-1 levels, which indicate concentrations above which notable discomfort or irritation could occur. Without that information, families and first responders cannot reasonably evaluate the risk or prepare for it.

Emergency planning should be proactive, not reactive. Preventing this type of danger and threat to the community should have been the priority before these units were brought on site, especially in a location so close to schools. Reactive emergency planning is always behind the curve. It would not be necessary if proactive research, careful discernment, and meaningful public-safety protections had been implemented from the beginning.

Dubois County residents deserve clear answers before this project proceeds any further. County officials, AES, and all responsible agencies should publicly address the spacing of the BESS units, the missing firefighting water supply, the status of electronic monitoring, the lack of first-responder training, the unfinished substation, and the emergency plans for nearby schools.

The safety of children, first responders, and the broader community must come before project timelines.

Dave Duncan
Huntingburg