A First (and Unauthorized) Look at Piqua's Battery Burning Report
A former committee member releases her own findings on Piqua's battery burnings
Recently, an “Unauthorized Report” of the Piqua City Commission’s Committee of the Fire Training Facility was recently released. Now, seeing such an “Unauthorized Report” would generally garner the interest of this publication, but this report is a little different. First, this report is authorized by one of the former members of the Committee; the author, Nancy Roof, was vice-chair of the committee and resigned from the committee in the early fall of last year.
The report can be accessed here:
The very nature of the author’s work in the report, at least shows that there is a strong argument that the report is a public record; the compiled work was largely done in public meetings or at least dealt with her work as a member of a public committee. There is a public aspect of this report that is worth a larger public discussion.
This publication has talked about this community in their work in the past; almost to the point where it seemed that the City Commission that helped create the committee, really put forward actions that questioned whether the commission wanted this ad-hoc committee to actually do any work.
The 76-page report on the Piqua Fire Training Facility exposes systemic failures in governance, environmental oversight, and public accountability. Spanning events from 2017 to 2023, the investigation reveals how a proposed firefighter training center in Piqua became a covert hub for hazardous lithium-ion battery testing involving private corporations, academic institutions, and various government agencies. The report underscores the erosion of institutional transparency and the prioritization of economic interests over public health, while offering critical recommendations to prevent future crises.
Origins and Escalation of the Battery Testing Program
The facility’s transformation began in 2017 when the City of Piqua partnered with Bowling Green State University (BGSU) to repurpose a decommissioned water treatment plant into a regional fire training center. Initial plans emphasized certifications and rescue simulations, but internal communications reveal battery testing was embedded from the outset. The City Administration and consultant Thomas Bensen secured open-burn permits under the guise of “fire research,” while downplaying risks associated with lithium-ion combustion. By 2018, global clients like Tesla and DNV GL conducted destructive battery tests releasing toxic fumes, including hydrogen fluoride and benzene. Regulatory agencies like the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) approved permits without adequate inspections, relying on outdated permissions transferred from a Delaware, Ohio facility. Zoning changes from “Open Space” to “Light Industrial” and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) with corporate clients further obscured operations.
Regulatory Negligence and Institutional Secrecy
The report highlights a pattern of regulatory capture, particularly by the Regional Air Pollution Control Agency (RAPCA), which approved annual burn permits based on self-reported data from Energy Safety Response Group (ESRG), the primary testing contractor. Despite community complaints about toxic emissions, RAPCA failed to mandate independent monitoring or enforce air quality standards. Emails between city officials and consultants reveal deliberate efforts to bypass permitting requirements, including transferring a Delaware-based permit to Piqua without due diligence. The Ohio EPA’s 2023 Notice of Violation (NOV) confirmed ESRG operated without a Permit to Install and Operate (PTIO), exposing systemic noncompliance. According to the report, the City Administration further stonewalled inquiries, withholding safety protocols and documentation.
Community Distrust and Environmental Harm
Residents reported respiratory issues, foul odors, and water contamination near the Great Miami River, a primary drinking water source. The city dismissed concerns, attributing pollution to routine fire training until whistleblowers and journalists uncovered invoices, EPA violations, and worker testimonies. Technical studies, including a 2020 Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) report, confirmed carcinogenic heavy metals and organic pollutants from battery combustion. Despite these risks, the city subsidized ESRG’s operations through utility funds and municipal labor, while workers described unregulated disposal practices and potential groundwater contamination.
Key Recommendations from the Report
The report concludes with a laundry list of actionable reforms to address governance failures and prevent recurrence. To summarize these recommendation it first calls for legislative updates to clarify jurisdictional authority between local, state, and federal regulators, ensuring no entity can exploit ambiguities in permitting processes. This includes mandating independent environmental impact assessments for industrial projects near critical infrastructure like water sources.
Second, the report emphasizes the need for transparency mechanisms, such as better tracking of permit applications, inspection results, and better mutually beneficial corporate partnerships. It advocates for community review boards with subpoena power to oversee projects with environmental or public health implications.
Third, the report urges stricter enforcement of occupational safety standards, including mandatory on-site Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) for all chemicals and waste, with retention periods extending 30 years. It recommends routine third-party air, soil, and water testing funded by corporate users, with results disclosed to the public.
Finally, the report stresses accountability measures, such as penalizing regulators for failures to conduct site inspections or act on complaints. It proposes revising zoning laws to require community referendums for industrial rezoning and creating whistleblower protections for municipal employees.
Conclusion: Pathways to Restoring Accountability
Perhaps, the most interesting part of the report comes towards the end, when this revelation is offered up:
Observing this process from the outside, this was never about a smoking gun. Such things rarely exist in local government these days. But communities shouldn’t confuse responsibility for culpability. There may have been no legal wrongdoing that took place, which will no doubt leave many disappointed. This was more about facing a clear collapse of public trust, how would the local government respond? What ended up being exposed are more than a few ethical concerns to leave residents feeling uneasy about what lead up to these burns and how these issues were discovered and ultimately resolved.
In some cases, the cover-up seemed just as worse as the purported crime. Instead of having difficult conversations with city leadership on how these burns happened, the city commission felt it best to drag five citizens into weekly meetings with little guidance and then put up obstacles in front of them to do answer those questions? Really?
Was this just a story of a small Midwestern town ready to work with a university and a private sector company just to provide fire training opportunities closer to home with the possibility to make a buck for the city? Maybe.
But, even if that is exactly what happened, government leaders, whether elected or appointed, have a responsibility to ensure our hometowns are good places to live, work and play now and into the future. And that requires a careful balance of economic, enviornmental and societal concerns.
And where local government falls flat so many times is that decisions seem to be based more on dollars and less on sense; decisions are often made to bring in short-term benefits with little discussion of the long-term consequences that can always be cleaned up by someone else.
In the end, we are learning bad decisions are just that, bad decisions. They aren’t necesarily illegal and often unethical, but at the core, they are just bad decisions. And when bad decisions are made, it means a lot when they are admitted and work is done to show that those decisions will never made again and trust is rebuilt.
In the end, it appears that this recounting of events shows the consequences of opaque governance and regulatory complacency. And while it is easy to discount this report, this is truly a cautionary tale for communities nationwide, particularly as lithium-ion battery demand grows.
By prioritizing legislative clarity, transparency, and community agency, the recommendations aim to rebuild public trust and ensure institutions serve communal—not corporate—interests. The path forward requires dismantling bureaucratic inertia, empowering independent oversight, and centering some degree of environmental justice over economic development as local policies are developed. As cities embrace emerging technologies, Piqua’s ordeal underscores the non-negotiable imperative of proactive, ethical governance.
What Comes Next?
The committee still needs to put forward their own report and it will be interesting to study the final committee report with the report put forward by the committee. Will they be similar? Will they be different? And what will account for those differences and similarites?
What we do know is that the recommendations put forward by both reports will require some level of discussion with the community and with the Commission itself. It will be fascinating to see what policy changes will be made in response to the number of regulatory failures that allowed these battery burnings to occur within the community.
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