After months of debate in the neighboring Town of Ulster over a proposed $200 million battery storage project—and amid fractures among Democrats—the Town of Hurley this week became the latest municipality in New York to enact a moratorium on ion-battery storage facilities.
Hurley’s Town Board voted unanimously Tuesday to impose a six-month pause on proposals to build lithium-ion battery storage sites in town. While no projects are currently planned for Hurley, the move aligns the town with more than two dozen communities statewide that have slowed or halted development of such facilities, citing safety and environmental risks.
The decision also reflects a larger tension: small towns asserting caution while global clean-energy companies, backed by billions in international investment, race to expand storage capacity. Terra-Gen, the developer behind Ulster’s proposal, is now half-owned by Masdar, the Abu Dhabi state-backed renewable energy giant. Together with its partner Igneo Infrastructure Partners, Terra-Gen controls 3.8 gigawatts of wind, solar and storage projects across the U.S. and is building a 12-gigawatt pipeline that includes facilities in California, Texas and New York.
The Hurley moratorium does not affect the Ulster proposal, which would convert the former John A. Coleman Catholic High School into a 250-megawatt storage site. That plan has drawn fierce opposition from nearby residents and Hurley officials. In August, Hurley’s board sent a letter to local, county and state leaders “adamantly” opposing the project, warning of potential fire hazards and environmental damage.
“I’m not questioning ion battery facilities. I am questioning putting one in a residential area,” Hurley Supervisor Michael Boms said at the time. “You’re inviting danger.”
The “danger,” opponents say, stems from a spate of lithium-ion battery fires nationwide in recent years. Fires have been reported in Missouri, California, Wisconsin, and Arizona, as well as Warwick, N.Y., in 2023, where noxious fumes unsettled residents. The Federal Emergency Management Agency warns such fires can reignite after being extinguished, release flammable gases, and spread rapidly when overheated cells are ejected from battery packs.
The debate continues as Gov. Kathy Hochul last week unveiled the $1 billion Sustainable Future Program, part of New York’s push to expand clean energy projects despite what she called “federal rollbacks” on climate rules. “While others may retreat, we are doubling down,” Hochul said.
But that doubling down has led to pushback from both sides of the political aisle. In the past two years, more than two dozen municipalities—led by both Republican and Democratic leadership —have imposed moratoriums on ion-battery storage facilities. From Islip to Yonkers to Poughkeepsie and Plattsburgh, residents and officials across the state have increasingly questioned the safety of ion-battery storage projects.
The bipartisan blowback on the issue resulted in a rift among Democrats last month when State Sen. Michelle Hinchey and Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha released a letter supporting the Tera-Gen plan and rejecting claims that the project posed unusual risks.
“It’s increasingly common for the fossil fuel industry to use isolated, unrelated incidents to evoke people’s worst fears about energy storage projects,” Shrestha said in the letter. “Our office has received a lot of questions in the past several months about [the proposal], specifically whether it poses the kind of safety risks people should be worried about—and we’ve done our due diligence to provide the short answer, which is no.”
Boms, a Democrat, countered: “I appreciate Sarahana and Michelle, and we can agree to disagree. But I am not a fossil fuel man. I don’t subscribe to their propaganda.”
Dozens of Hurley residents on Tuesday thanked the town board for passing the moratorium, with resident Janet Cross describing the Ulster Tera-Gen proposal as “disastrous”. There was no public opposition to the moratorium during a public hearing session.
Board member Debbie Dougherty said the halt on storage projects would give the board time to examine existing town code while doing further research on the potential environmental and safety ramifications of future proposals. Boms said that, after six-months, the town could choose to extend the moratorium.
Shrestha, when reached by The Overlook, declined to comment specifically on the Hurley vote, but remained steadfast in her support of the state’s climate goals.
“Opposition to what’s necessary to meet our goals is, unfortunately, not a new phenomenon,” Shrestha said, adding that she hoped to bring “constituents into the conversation.”
Hinchey did not reply to a request for comment.
Boms said the board planned on inviting Hinchey and Shrestha to speak at its next meeting on Oct. 28.
The Hurley moratorium marks a pause in a debate that stretches far beyond town borders. As Terra-Gen and its new partner Masdar push forward with billions in projects across the U.S. – backed by state officials ramping up green energy plans—local officials and residents across the state find themselves as a test case in whether small communities can shape how and where the global clean-energy transition takes root.
