Excerpt:
Days after one of the world’s largest lithium ion battery storage facilities burst into flames in Monterey County, researchers found alarmingly high concentrations of heavy metals at a nearby estuary that is home to several endangered species…

Scientists at San José State University recorded a dramatic increase in nickel, manganese and cobalt — materials used in lithium ion batteries — in soil samples at the Elkhorn Slough Reserve after the recent fire at the nearby Moss Landing Power Plant.

The toxic metals threaten to upset the delicate ecosystem at the Elkhorn Slough, which is the state’s second-largest estuary and plays a key role in sequestering carbon emissions and protecting the coastline from sea level rise, said Ivano Aiello, chair of the university’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories.

Aiello, who has monitored environmental conditions at the slough for more than a decade, said he was shocked by the results.

The concentration of nickel, manganese and cobalt measured on the surface of the soil is hundreds to thousands of times as much as the levels in the surface soil prior to the fire or compared with levels measured deeper in the soil.

“I was wondering whether there was anything associated with this fire that could have been impacted,” said Aiello. “I didn’t know I was going find such a high concentration of those metals.”

On Tuesday, Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church called the findings “extremely disturbing” and said he was worried about what future data would reveal regarding the consequences of the unprecedented blaze. The fire ignited Jan. 16, burned for five days and ultimately destroyed an estimated 80% of the batteries inside the building, which is on the coast about 18 miles north of the city of Monterey.

Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay) said in a statement Monday that she was “deeply concerned” about the concentration of heavy metals in “one of our most cherished and fragile ecosystems…”