MOSS LANDING — After experiencing a headache and metallic taste in her mouth during yardwork following a fire at the Vistra battery storage plant in January, Moss Landing resident Bonnie Grey decided to wear an N95 mask while dusting and vacuuming around her house in late February.
A few days later, she became ill with rashes, vomiting and fever that persisted for at least a week. Her blood nearly turned septic. She was then admitted to the hospital where she received no conclusive diagnoses to explain her sudden symptoms.
“I’m a healthy person,” Grey says. “I rarely get sick, but suddenly doctors were telling me I might have lupus or some autoimmune disease.”
Grey eventually recovered, but this bizarre health scare motivated her to donate a hair sample to a testing effort organized by grassroots organization Never Again Moss Landing the first weekend in October.
Thousands of lithium-ion batteries ignited on Jan. 16 at the Moss Landing Energy Storage Facility and burned for two days, forcing residents to evacuate as plumes of smoke containing heavy metals such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese drifted across the community. Environmental testing after the disaster so far has included air, soil, water, and surface wipe samples. State and federal agencies concluded that the data compiled on Monterey County’s Department of Emergency Management website did not warrant further investigation.
However, a recent study published in Nature Scientific Reports by Ivano Aiello of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and San José State University found that increased concentrations of nickel, manganese and cobalt in the soil of surrounding wetlands between late January and early February 2025 were “clearly attributable” to the fallout of heavy metals from the battery fire’s smoke plumes. These results were obtained using portable X-ray fluorescence technology that revealed a patchy distribution of the metals, which indicates the relative futility of traditional soil core sampling methods that could pull a clean patch of soil right next to a contaminated patch. “This key information could have been completely missed if we had relied only on a handful of samples taken in space and time,” the study states.
Some community residents remain unsatisfied with the lack of human sampling conducted given the strange symptoms. Part of the challenge is that potential human health impacts from this type of exposure is not well understood in current science according to some. This scientific gap is unfortunate in the wake of a mass exposure event like the battery fire. Adding to the urgency is that other battery energy storage systems are slated for construction across the state. Community residents hope their experiences can contribute to what they feel is a much-needed data set.
Tonya Rivera, co-founder and chairperson of Never Again Moss Landing, says she has been in touch with people in over 80 different countries who closely follow information from the aftermath of the fire because they are worried about the potential dangers of battery storage facilities in their communities.
Never Again Moss Landing reached out to UC Santa Cruz toxicology professor Donald Smith to request analyses of hair samples provided by Grey and other volunteers. Smith shares the community’s concern that the environmental tests conducted after the battery fire were insufficient measures of investigating human health impacts.
Research in Smith’s lab has focused on understanding effects of exposures to heavy metals including lead, arsenic and manganese. Smith says that manganese, a key component of the batteries that burned, differs from lead and arsenic in that the human body requires small amounts for healthy function and its toxicity is less well understood. High concentrations of manganese can cause neurodevelopmental deficits in children, but current research lacks information on adult exposures and related health impacts. Smith and his colleagues’ previous research has attempted to identify which human samples – blood, hair, fingernails, or urine – provide the best window into health risks associated with manganese exposure.
The advantage of hair, according to Smith, is that segments of its growth could provide a sort of environmental timeline, like ice cores or tree rings. Testing hair closest to the scalp could reveal recent exposures, and testing ends of hair follicles may provide information on exposures months ago, depending on the length of the hair.
According to Smith, these hair samples submitted by the Moss Landing community will contribute to a growing body of toxicology research. Smith’s lab will analyze the hair samples for manganese concentrations, but cannot yet interpret those results to connect exposure to symptoms without more long-term data.
“We’re guinea pigs,” says Rivera as she describes the feeling of donating samples that she knows don’t yield short-term answers.
These hair samples are just one facet of further testing the community is trying to coordinate. Smith and his colleagues are working to implement student research projects that would provide more information to the Moss Landing residents and also help train the environmental toxicologists of the future.
“The best outcome would be to do all of this comprehensive work and find that there’s not a problem,” Smith said. “But in the absence of that data, we’re sort of left wondering.”
