The Three Sustainability Tests the Oshtemo Township, Kalamazoo MI Battery Project Fails
Kalamazoo County, MI is bringing in sustainability speakers on June 25, 2026 to talk battery energy storage and data centers and your community. A presentation about batteries and data centers from some people professionally invested in clean-energy deployment is not the same thing as an independent review of all aspects of these projects. Checking into some of the speakers, the non-profits organizations they run make millions off rolling out these types of projects to towns.
Before anyone accepts the sales pitch, we should ask a basic question:
What does sustainability actually mean?
Sustainability is commonly defined as meeting present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It requires balancing natural resource conservation with long-term human well-being and development.
In plain English, sustainability is not just a green label. It is not just a climate talking point. It is not just a project that makes a spreadsheet look good. Sustainability is supposed to balance three things: environmental protection, social well-being, and long-term economic responsibility.
That is often called the “triple bottom line.” So let’s apply that test to the proposed industrial scale Battery Energy Storage System, or BESS, on S Van Kal St, Oshtemo Township, Kalamazoo, MI.
The Environmental Test: What Is Actually Being Protected?
The first pillar of sustainability is environmental protection. That means protecting ecosystems, reducing waste, and preventing the depletion of natural resources.
So how does a grid-charged battery project next to homes, wells, wetlands, farms, and sensitive groundwater meet that test?
The Weeds Lake Substation is not a solar farm. It is not a wind farm. It is not a green-energy source. It is a transmission node.
Power moving through that system comes from the regional grid mix. The regional grid has included major fossil and nuclear resources, including the J.H. Campbell coal plant in West Olive, natural gas generation across the region, Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, and Palisades in Covert if and when operating.
So the first environmental question is simple:
Where is the surplus renewable energy coming from?
If there is no dedicated surplus renewable generation, then this project is not local green-energy production. It is a grid-charged industrial battery project.
And because batteries lose energy in the charge-and-discharge cycle, the project must prove that it actually reduces emissions. It is not enough to say “batteries help renewables.” Maybe they can. But this battery system, on this site, under this operating plan, has to prove it.
Sustainability is not a slideshow about saving the environment while the actual land, wells, wetlands, farms, and families next to the project are treated as collateral damage.
The Manufacturing Problem They Do Not Want to Talk About
The environmental test does not stop at the fence line. Large battery systems require major industrial manufacturing, transportation, replacement parts, cooling systems, electronics, fire suppression planning, long-term maintenance, and eventual decommissioning or recycling.
Battery supply chains also rely on critical minerals. The International Energy Agency notes that lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite are crucial to battery performance. [4] Those materials do not magically appear because a project is called green. They are mined, processed, shipped, manufactured, maintained, replaced, and eventually handled at end of life.
So before this project is called sustainable, the public deserves a full life-cycle discussion. Not just the benefits. Not just the marketing language. The whole picture.
The Social Test: Who Carries the Burden?
The second pillar of sustainability is social well-being. That means protecting human health, community stability, fairness, and quality of life.
This is where the S Van Kal project fails hardest.
The people who live near this proposed site are not abstract dots on a map. They are thousands of families, farmers, children, homeowners, well users, and neighbors. They are the people who would live with the sound, lighting, viewshed impacts, emergency-response concerns, fire planning issues, evacuation questions, groundwater worries, and loss of rural residential character.
If sustainability means community well-being, then the community being impacted should matter.
Questions to ask:
- Are nearby residents better off?
- Are their homes better protected?
- Are their wells safer?
- Are their farms less burdened?
- Are their children facing fewer risks?
- Is the rural residential neighborhood more stable?
- Or are the impacts being pushed onto one area so the project can be sold as a regional benefit?
A project is not socially sustainable simply because people outside the impact zone like the idea of it. Social sustainability has to include the people who are being asked to live next to it.
Green Benefits for Some, Local Burdens for Others
If the county brings in speakers from sustainability organizations to promote the benefits of battery storage, residents should be asking why those speakers are just selling the general concept. On paper some battery projects may sound great – but when actually studying the Oshtemo Township BESS project there are real concerns not being discussed.
A general presentation about why batteries can help the grid does not answer:
- Whether battery projects belongs beside homes, wells, wetlands, farms, and sensitive groundwater.
- Whether 55-plus decibels of constant industrial sound belongs at home walls.
- Whether emergency responders are prepared for a large-scale battery event.
- Whether local families should be expected to absorb the impacts while others claim the environmental credit.
That is not community sustainability. That is burden shifting.
Grid Reliability for Whom?
A battery connected to the high-voltage transmission system does not automatically provide backup power to nearby homes. If a storm knocks out local distribution lines, the battery does not magically reconnect broken wires, repair poles, or power a neighborhood that is physically disconnected from the grid. So when supporters say “grid reliability,” residents should ask: reliability for whom? The regional grid, the utility market, or the people living next to the project?
Questions to Ask About “Grid Reliability”:
- Is this BESS connected to Oshtemo’s local distribution system or only to the high-voltage transmission system?
- Will it provide backup power to nearby homes during a local outage?
- Will it reduce outage frequency or outage duration for Oshtemo residents?
- Who controls dispatch — the utility, MISO, the developer, or the market?
- If the reliability benefit is regional, why should the local impacts be placed in a rural residential neighborhood?
The Economic Test: Who Really Benefits?
The third pillar of sustainability is economic viability. But real economic sustainability is not just “somebody makes money.”
It asks whether a project is financially responsible over the long term without depending on hidden costs, public subsidies, tax advantages, non-renewable practices, or burdens pushed onto others.
Supporters may point to tax revenue and temporary jobs. But that raises more questions such as:
- Will there be tax abatements?
- Where will the tax dollars actually flow?
- How much stays local?
- Can residents expect a reduction in taxes with the surplus tax income from the project?
- Can rate payers expect to see a reduction in their utility bills?
- Will peak power charges disappear because of the batteries selling back energy during peak?
- Does it compensate the neighbors whose daily lives, property values, and rural character are affected?
- Does it cover emergency planning, training, equipment, road impacts, long-term oversight, and decommissioning?
- Does it cover the risk of future contamination, fire response, or full cleanup?
- What would a full catastrophic event cost?
- Will our utility bills even go down?
- Is it all worth it?
- Why are other states pumping the brakes if the money is great?
Economic sustainability cannot be measured only by what the developer earns or what a taxing authority might collect. It also has to count the costs being shifted onto residents, emergency services, local infrastructure, and future generations.
A Project Built on Non-Renewable Inputs Is Not Automatically Sustainable
There is another economic contradiction.
If the battery charges from a grid mix that includes non-renewable energy, is manufactured with mined materials, requires ongoing industrial maintenance, depends on global supply chains, and creates long-term replacement and recycling issues, then it should not be casually marketed as “sustainable” without proof.
That does not mean all batteries are bad. It means the word sustainable has to mean something.
If a project depends on non-renewable inputs, creates local land-use harm, burdens neighboring residents, and cannot prove emissions reductions, then calling it sustainable is a stretch because:
- Calling it green does not make it green.
- Calling it clean does not make it clean.
- Calling it sustainable does not make it sustainable.
The Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability Fails Here
By the actual sustainability test, this project has serious problems.
Environmentally, it is not proven to be clean energy. It is a grid-charged battery project unless the developer proves dedicated surplus renewable charging and real emissions reductions.
Socially, it shifts noise, risk, land loss, emergency burden, groundwater concern, and rural residential impacts onto thousands of families.
Economically, it may create revenue for some, but the public has not seen a full accounting of tax abatements, local costs, emergency service costs, long-term maintenance, decommissioning, property impacts, and who pays if something goes wrong.
That is not the triple bottom line. That is a sales pitch with missing columns.
The Questions for the Sustainability Speakers
- What makes a battery project truly sustainable?
- Should a grid-charged BESS be marketed as green energy if it cannot prove dedicated surplus renewable charging?
- Should a battery project qualify as sustainable if it increases local noise, land-use conflict, emergency-response burden, or groundwater concern?
- How should communities measure whether a project reduces harm overall instead of simply shifting the harm onto one neighborhood?
- Should rural residential land be treated differently than industrial land when siting large-scale energy infrastructure?
- What is the point of an industrial zone with waste water management if projects are steered to critical watersheds instead?
- What evidence should residents demand before accepting claims that a project reduces emissions?
- Who pays for emergency planning, fire training, equipment, long-term maintenance oversight, decommissioning, and potential cleanup?
- What would make a site inappropriate for a BESS?
The public deserves more than a presentation about theoretical benefits. We deserve clear standards, honest tradeoffs, and real answers about when a project does not belong.
Sustainability is proven by showing that a project protects the environment, protects people, and does not push long-term costs onto the community being asked to host it.
Sustainability Has to Mean More Than “Green Energy”
A battery is not renewable energy. It does not create wind, solar, or any other green power. It stores whatever electricity the grid gives it. All of these “renewable projects” are being forced under PA 233, but do they even qualify?
- If the project is grid-charged, call it grid-charged.
- If it reduces emissions, prove it.
- If it is sustainable, prove it under all three categories: environmental, social, and economic.
But do not put an industrial battery project in a rural residential neighborhood, wrap it in a green label, and call that sustainability.
Sustainability is supposed to protect future generations. It is not supposed to sacrifice thousands of families for a talking point.
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