Tiffany Greenwaldt-Simon reports for Columbia-Greene Media that many local residents turned out in Catskill Jan. 23 for a public hearing on a proposed battery storage facility. The proposed facility would be at a junkyard at 8006 Route 9W in Catskill. The junk would be removed, Justin Adams, vice president of permitting at Eolian Energy, said, and the northern side of the site they will place 136 containers with batteries made of lithium iron phosphate producing 100 megawatts of power over a four-hour period. Catskill Grid LLC, the company running the facility, is talking with Central Hudson to connect the facility to the power grid. Residents such as Colleen Gavigan of Catskill worried about the impact of the new business. Gavigan said, “I live in the house I grew up in, I know it’s a throwaway neighborhood, it’s industrial, but I don’t want it worse than it was. I just don’t want the neighborhood to get worse, and from my perspective it looks like it’s going to get worse.” Adams tried to ease the neighbors concerns, but admitted fans to cool the batteries would make some noise that could go as high as 57 decibels. The public hearing for the battery storage business remains open, and will be taken up at the next meeting of the town planning board at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 27. Read more about this story at HudsonValley360.com.