Stonington — First Selectwoman Danielle Chesebrough said Wednesday that she has made it clear to a representative of the company proposing a controversial electrical storage facility off Prentice Williams Road in Old Mystic that the town would not support a tax abatement for the project.

Chesebrough said she spoke with Scott Connuck, the senior project developer for East Point Energy of Charlottesville, Va., on Tuesday and listened to him outline the plan and its benefits for the town. She described the company as being in the "very early due diligence stage" of the project as it considers various locations around the state.

Connuck has said that typically his firm requires a seven- to 10-year tax abatement to be approved by a community for a project to go forward. Abatements help offset large upfront costs for such projects. 

Tax abatements here must be approved by residents. Chesebrough said she told Connuck that "we can't see a situation where the community would support (an abatement) given the information at hand now." 

She added Wednesday that she wanted to be transparent with East Point about the town's position on a tax abatement and did not want the company to waste its time. She said East Point will continue its discussions with the town's Economic Development Commission and was open to considering other possible locations in town.

Chesebrough said she asked East Point to keep the town updated on any developments. "We'll keep tabs on it," she said.

So-called Grid Scale Energy Storage systems use lithium ion batteries and are designed to produce resiliency in the energy grid when power is needed. Renderings of the project show 34 battery enclosures the size of cargo shipping containers and a substation placed on a concrete slab and surrounded by a security fence and trees for screening. The 27-acre site at 94 Prentice Williams Road owned by Amons Stack LLC, whose principal is Lawrence Williams of Old Mystic, is zoned greenbelt residential, which means 130,000 square feet of land is needed to build a home.

Last week a group of 49 neighbors sent a petition to Chesebrough outlining their opposition to the proposal and urging the town to write a letter to the Connecticut Siting Council opposing the project. It would be the siting council, not  town commissions, that would decide whether to issue the required permit for the project. While Selectwomen Deborah Downey and June Strunk said at Wednesday's Board of Selectmen meeting that they supported sending a letter in opposition to the siting council, Chesebrough said the town would need to wait to send such a letter because no application has been filed for the project. 

The neighbors, the Aquarion Water Co., Old Mystic Fire Chief Ken Richards Jr. and some town officials have said the project would endanger the aquifer where it is located and the nearby Aquarion Water Co. reservoir, does not conform to the rural zoning in the area, and poses both a fire and safety hazard for neighbors. With the need for heavy equipment to access the site for construction and to deliver the storage containers, they said the road would be blocked to firetrucks, police and ambulances.

But Connuck has stressed there would be no air or water emissions from the project and no runoff onto adjacent properties. He said the batteries are contained within nonflammable metal containers, which remain water- and airtight even in a fire.

The nearest fire hydrant is 2 miles away, which means tankers would have to shuttle water to a fire down the road, which is too narrow for two trucks to pass each other.

Richards said this week that large amounts of water are needed to put out such fires and getting that much water to the site would be a problem. In addition, he said the water would flow onto reservoir land, meaning firefighters might have to let the fire burn out itself. He said he also has concerns about accessing the site.

In addition to increased tax revenue for the town as the tax abatement is phased out on the project, which is valued at tens of millions of dollars, Connuck said the project has a variety of benefits such as reducing pollution and the need for more electrical infrastructure, improving reliability during blackouts and providing power during peak demand periods.

j.wojtas@theday.com