News of the development of another lithium-ion battery storage facility in the Town of Brookhaven has some Medford residents on edge.

Residents voiced their opinions during a Town of Brookhaven planning board meeting Monday evening. The proposed site in Bellport would be on Station Road.

Residents like Bill LaGrange say the site poses too many risks to the nearby community.

"It's a dangerous thing and it's bad for our neighborhood,” he said. "I want the town to know they should find some place else to put it if they want to put it some place and not put it in an area where it's populated."

Contractors for the developers testified to the planning board about a multilayer safety approach, which includes explosion protection, fire suppression and other electrical safety systems.

Nick Petrakis, from the Energy Safety Response Group, said an emergency response procedure also includes trainings for local firefighters on how to respond to a catastrophe at the site.

"A failure, if it does become much larger, the fire department is adequately trained to understand how to mitigate that failure, how to isolate it, to use the site separations to their advantage, and even just to let the system sort of safely consume itself,” said Petrakis.

After almost two hours of testimony from developers and community members, some residents like Anthony Lomuto, of Medford still aren't sold on the plans.

"They can do some more research. They can provide better safety for this. And then ensure to the community, 'Listen, nothing is going to happen and this is how we're going to prevent it,’” said Lomuto.

Some residents and unions expressed support for the project during the public hearing.

The board did not vote on the proposal Monday tonight, but the board did vote to add the proposal to their decision calendar.