Residents of Morro Bay fight Texas

Morro Bay's three decommissioned 450-foot-tall industrial smokestacks have been a blight for so long, they’ve become iconic, stitching themselves into not only the town's sightlines but its very identity. But sentimentality for a symbol of an industrial past isn't the reason why residents of the Central Coast beach town are crying out against what Texas-based Vistra Corp. has proposed to replace the smokestacks with.

After the stacks come down, what could come up is the world's largest lithium battery storage plant.

Many residents feel that's not the right direction for the coastal community of 10,779 located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ending almost a century of power and energy-based commerce here is proving to be a heady task. Moving away from history while taking on a multibillion-dollar out-of-state power company is nearly impossible.

Still, despite the long odds, this is one fight that a local conservation group feels is worth taking on.

Volunteers for Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation meet in Morro Bay, Calif., on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.

"We’ve been looking at the history of Estero Bay," Barry Branin, one of the leaders of a recently formed group called Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation, told SFGATE, noting that in 1930, Standard Oil started bringing oil from the Central Valley to the coast here, followed by Texaco in 1936. "At one time, this was the largest petroleum export bay on the West Coast," he pointed out.

"All of those industrial sites — I’m going to call them brownfields — are gone now," he continued. "The sites have been converted to housing or open space. The only brownfield that's left in Estero Bay is the power plant property that hasn't been used for many years." (The plant ceased operations in 2014 because of the environmental impacts of the almost six-decade-old facility.)

In early June, Morro Bay issued a Notice of Preparation to inform the public that it's preparing an Environmental Impact Report, or EIR, to build and operate a 600-megawatt battery energy storage system on 24 acres of the power plant's footprint.

"What they’ve proposed in their NOP to the city was, frankly, frightening," Branin said. "Their proposal is to put up three buildings each one as big as a Costco, and to fill it up with batteries, which are useful, but [in] what we feel is an inappropriate location."

Morro Bay's dormant power plant's three smokestacks are a symbol of the town to many who live there and visit.

The Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation group also points to safety concerns with lithium-ion plants, including a September 2022 fire in Moss Landing, caused by a Tesla battery stored there. The battery storage fire led to the temporary closure of Highway 1 and a shelter-in-place order.

Opponents of the proposed Morro Bay facility feel that Moss Landing provides an example of how a lithium-ion plant can be dangerous: It's a small Central Coast beach town that has been adversely affected by a battery storage facility. The group not only points to the Moss Landing fire as an example of dangers inherent in such operations but also references the Moss Landing facility's EIR, which states that no schools, parks or beaches can be within a quarter mile of the battery storage facility.

A mockup of the lithium battery storage facility that is proposed to replace the dormant power plant in Morro Bay, Calif.

The main difference between the two locations is in population (according to the 2020 U.S. census, Moss Landing had only 237 residents). With Morro Bay's much bigger population and the proposed facility's being within a quarter mile of Lila Keiser Park, Coleman Park and the beach, the Estero Bay activists are worried about the potential dangers.

"If it is not safe for Moss Landing, why is it safe for Morro Bay, especially with a high school about a 1/4 mile away?" the group's website reads.

However, a Vistra spokesperson disagreed that the battery storage facilities posed safety issues. "During the heatwave in September, up to 7 percent of the energy on the California grid came from batteries and they are performing superbly and safely," Vistra Community Affairs Director Brad Watson told KSBY last November.

"Vistra remains excited about the opportunity to partner with the city and local community on the redevelopment of the decommissioned Morro Bay power plant site and to help California advance its renewable energy goals," Jenny Lyon, a Vistra spokesperson, wrote in an email to SFGATE Thursday. "Further information on the specifics of the project will be shared during the public process."

Morro Bay city officials have not gone on record to say whether they support the battery storage facility project. "The city's job is to not take an official stance on anything — and the city can't. You can't take stances because you would prejudice yourself," Morro Bay Community Development Director Scot Graham told SFGATE regarding the project and the Estero Bay group's efforts.

"Also, we’re not there yet," Graham explained. "We’re putting the EIR together. That's what we’re doing now."

Volunteers for Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation meet in Morro Bay, Calif., on Tuesday, June 6, 2023.

Graham said Morro Bay is working with environmental consulting firm Rincon Consultants Inc. to put together the EIR for the potential conversion of the power plant into the lithium battery storage facility. "We’ll probably get administrative drafts any day now," he said. "At some point in the fall, we will be releasing the draft EIR for public consumption and comment."

For opponents of the project, however, it doesn't matter what city officials think: They maintain the battery plant proposal is not congruous with the zoning restrictions of the city's current general plan.

"The city completed the updating of their general plan in 2021, and in that general plan update, the land use in that area I call the north Embarcadero was called ‘visitors serving commercial,’" Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation's Branin said. "With that zoning, to put any kind of industrial site, you have to come back and ask for a zoning change. So, we said, there's an old joke: If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. So, we want to be at the table when that decision is made."

Morro Bay's Graham said the city started to update its general plan before Vistra took over ownership of the power plant parcel. The previous owner, Dynegy Inc., which Vistra acquired in April 2018, was "not engaged with the city in what they should do," Graham said, explaining the city's rationale when creating the current zoning of the power plant footprint and defining the power plant's zones as visitor-serving commercial or commercial/recreational fishing. "We said, ‘We don't really know what people want, but we’re not sure we want heavy industrial use.’"

On Tuesday, about a dozen volunteers for Citizens for Estero Bay Preservation met at Buttercup Bakery and Cafe in downtown Morro Bay to go over the initiative they had submitted to the city attorney on May 24. That initiative, if successful, would establish voter approval on any zoning changes at the site. In other words, voters would get to vote on the plant's construction twice: first, to secure the power of final say over zoning changes, and second, to approve any changes the city of Morro Bay makes at the behest of Vistra.

Morro Rock and the Morro Bay smokestacks on the Central California beach town's waterfront.

The measure says it would "prohibit, unless approved by Morro Bay voters, any change to land use designations of visitor-serving commercial, or commercial/recreational fishing, on certain designated parcels within the city."

The group plans to start collecting signatures this week. "Eight hundred is necessary," Branin said, "But we’re looking for 1,000, and we know we can get it."

The city of Morro Bay's Graham concedes that the community has expressed a desire for other things besides industrial use on the power plant's footprint. "I’m not sure if the initiative aligns with the input we’ve received at this point," he said in reference to the Estero Bay group's efforts. "But there will be more opportunities for public input."

He also noted that it is possible that the city council could vote to change its general plan use map and zoning before the Estero Bay group's initiative hits a ballot — if it gets that far. Any change would "go to the planning commission first, then to the city council," Graham said. "If approved, it would then have to go to the Coastal Commission, who would have to certify it."

As for the site of the proposed battery plant and the fate of the city's beloved smokestacks, Branin said his group doesn't take a position on whether to keep the towering gray landmarks. Vistra has agreed to tear down the smokestacks by Dec. 31, 2027, or it will owe the city of Morro Bay $3 million.

Branin says what's right for the health of the next generations of Morro Bay residents and visitors — as well as for the land the smokestacks occupy — is his chief concern.

Preservation is a long game he hopes Vistra won't overlook.

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"I heard their president was out here a few weeks ago competing in our first Iron Man [triathlon]," he said. "Maybe there's hope. Maybe there's some understanding about the beauty and preciousness of this coastline. They should know what they have. They have the silk purse."