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Story and Photos By Karen PearlmanApril 11, 2025 (La Mesa) -- “No matter how it’s sugarcoated, battery storage facilities are dystopian looking, loud, detrimental to real estate values and potentially deadly,” La Mesa City Councilmember Laura Lothian says.
For several years, Lothian (pictured above, with Heartland Fire & Rescue Fire Chief Bent Koch) has been a vocal opponent of a proposed Battery Energy Storage System site in the Lake Murray area of La Mesa.
With residents asking to be heard, she held an informal town hall on Wednesday, April 9 at Brew Coffee Spot on Lake Murray Boulevard, just steps away from the proposed site.
Although the La Mesa City Council still has to approve the project, local residents are fired up and mostly angry about the possibility of the system running in the neighborhood.
Nearly 100 people packed the cozy coffeehouse to register concern, and more than 20 people directed questions and concerns to Lothian, City of La Mesa Development Director Lynette Santos, Heartland Fire & Rescue Fire Marshall Kenneth King and Koch.
Many cited perceived dangers of possible large-scale lithium-ion battery fires in their neighborhood.The site's proximity to homes and shopping in the area has some people pushing back, worried about plumes of toxic smoke, as well as emissions of gases and particles.
The project site is adjacent to three single-family homes, but according to a city report, the homes sit approximately 30 feet up the hill from the proposed facility location.
Issues for Water Safety, Noise, Home Values
Some residents expressed concern that waste could end up in Lake Murray, a reservoir serving thousands of San Diego city residents with fresh water. The site would also be loud when running.
Residents also said they were concerned about plummeting home values and rises in their home insurance premiums because of the operation.
Jewelry store owner and resident Jonathan Flint (photo, left) said he worries about the fire risk in a neighborhood that has seen a nearby gas station catch fire and a liquor store burned down.“The battery facility may be something that I feel may not itself catch on fire by itself, but there are other potential risks that I think we need to look at,” Flint said.
He expressed concern that the fire department might be spread too thin and response times could be delayed. He said vandalism in the area is also a problem, with electrical systems being broken into, and wondered if there was a market for the batteries themselves.
Flint and others also said they expected their property values to go down and their insurance go up because of the facility’s proximity to their homes.
Tara Covington, a retired school nurse (photo, right), said the children at Murray Manor could be in danger from any toxic emissions that the site might emit.“I want to make sure that we have the healthiest environmental areas for our children to grow up in,” Covington said. “La Mesa-Spring Valley Schools are not prepared for sheltering in place for a toxic plume. The only thing they’re prepared for and that they practice is an active shooter, and for an earthquake. But if you’ve got a toxic plume, those classrooms… are not filled with the kind of tape and plastic that you need to seal your windows and doors.”
Solana Beach-based EnerSmart Storage has proposed building an 18-megawatt Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facility on a vacant lot at 8135 El Paso St. The project’s capacity is 36 megawatt hours, enough to power more than 10,000 homes each hour it provides energy to the grid.
East County Magazine reached out toEnerSmart to request comment, but the company did not respond.
La Mesa and Climate Goals
The City’s General Plan, Climate Action Plan and other City policies including a Climate Emergency Resolution have strongly supported environmental sustainability, energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction, which this type of battery storage ostensibly would be a part of.
Meanwhile, more than 1,100 people in the La Mesa neighborhood bordering the San Carlos area of the city of San Diego have already signed a petition to stop the BESS -- see https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-proposed-battery-storage-site-at-8135-...
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to propose a battery site next to my neighbor’s backyards,” said Teri Hoffman (photo, left), who started the petition. “Isn’t there another place that could go? I’ve seen places in La Mesa where it could go -- large spaces.”The planned BESS site is near a shopping center, residential homes and close to Murray Manor Elementary School."Battery storage facilities are key to expanding renewable energy production such as wind and solar energy, enabling power to be utilized when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. The plant would store supplemental energy from renewable energy sources including wind and solar, supplying energy to a power grid during peak hours, and through San Diego Gas & Electric's substation, which is across the street.
But battery storage facilities have also been a catalyst for fires, most notably a fire at a large battery storage site in Otay Mesa in May 2024. Some nearby businesses had to evacuate for two weeks after that fire.
There are some key differences between the Chula Vista BESS and La Mesa’s proposed site.
Otay has a 250 megawatt “warehouse” system with lithium-ion batteries and all batteries housed together. La Mesa’s would be a far smaller 3-megawatt containerized system with lithium iron phosphate, which is less prone to overheating and catching fire than the lithium ion batteries at Otay.
However, in addition to the fire in Chula Vista, there have been other documented blazes at battery storage facilities in Valley Center and Escondido.
The Past and the Future
The storage site was initially shared in a La Mesa Planning Commission report in April 2021. It was approved by the city’s Planning Commission over two years later in July 2023, and at that time, no appeals were received. In August 2023, the city’s Design Review Board postponed consideration and asked for aesthetic improvements to the developer’s renderings showing a retaining wall and stone veneers.
Heartland Fire is currently reviewing the developer's application to determine whether it is up to fire code standards.
The applicant still must submit a Hazard Analysis and Emergency Response Plan to be reviewed by a fire protection engineer subject matter expert hired by the city., Koch told those in attendance.
“The department’s primary concern is our community’s health and safety, as well as first responder and firefighter health and safety, so we are approaching any project from that perspective,” he said.
Koch said the Heartland team is still waiting to receive EnerSmart’s updated hazard mitigation analysis and report.
King said that when the report is shared, he is “going to be the guy that's going to read every word and every page of any report that’s submitted to fire… That’s going to be my responsibility, to take that on, to do that evaluation, to ensure that the requirements of the fire code are being met by any application that’s being processed and evaluated by (the fire department).”
According to the EnerSmart Storage website, the plan calls for 21 containers on site with a six-foot wall along El Paso Street, and another wall along the western property line that would act as a sound barrier where the site backs up to homes.
The company says that the La Mesa project will feature 21 containers that measure 3 30 x 8 x 9 feet on about 22,000 square feet of land. The site will be fenced and screened with materials and landscaping “appropriate to the context of the neighborhood” and meet the city’s criteria.
The project’s battery systems emit sounds when in use -- typically for very short periods and mostly during the day when electricity demand is high – and the company’s website notes that a sound barrier will be installed along the western property line that neighbors existing residences, which will keep noise levels at the property line below city-required decibel levels.
EnerSmart says BESS facilities are a vital component to helping the State of California meet its goals of 90% clean energy by 2035, and 100% clean energy by 2045.All proposed battery storage systems must meet code and regulation requirements including Chapter 12 of the 2022 California Fire Code and SB 38.
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