Rally in St. Albans, Queens opposes planned lithium-ion battery storage facility

A rally was held in southeast Queens Tuesday, pushing back against a planned lithium-ion battery storage facility. 

Neighbors gathered in St. Albans, holding signs and chanting "no" to the development from NineDot Energy. 

The community says they're concerned about the facility in a residential neighborhood and potential fire risks associated with lithium-ion batteries. 

"If anything goes wrong, this community is in the line of fire and that's what's most concerning. It's not that we don't want them. We want them to be in places where it doesn't have to be on someone's doorstep," Assemblymember Alicia Hyndman said. 

"NineDot Energy's future battery storage project in St. Albans is on a commercially-zoned site that previously was a gas station opposed by community members for decades. We are nearly finished with remediating the environmental harm caused by that gas station as we prepare to build a clean energy storage system that will benefit the local community. Completing this remediation requires brief access to the neighboring lot, following processes that developers of all kinds use in New York routinely, designed to allow development to proceed while protecting neighboring properties," a NineDot spokesperson said. 

Editor's note: This reporting has been updated to include a response from NineDot.