VAN ZANDT, Texas (KETK) – Citizens of Van Zandt County are going to new heights to bring awareness to the safety concerns surrounding the 100-megawatt lithium battery plant.
It was announced in November 2024 that the Finnish-owned Amador Energy Project was set to be built just outside of Canton on 48-acres. Just a few weeks later, residents came together in droves bringing forth their concerns about the oncoming project, including local fire departments who believe if a fire were to spark, there wouldn’t be enough manpower available to respond.
“The more I found, the more questions and concerns I had as to how this can be a thing that is okay,” Nancy White said.
Family, friends and the quiet country way of life are all things Nancy White and other community members believe could be negatively impacted by the presence of the lithium battery plant.
“My land and my children are my life. I live for the hope that my children will want to stay on our generational land, and we raised them and homeschooled them in a way that they would want to and if that’s gone, what am I living for,” White said. “So I will fight every step of the way to protect them and our home.”
White, along with others, want help and are looking to the very top of our nation’s political powers to do so. “We’ve been tagging them,” White said. “We’ve been tagging Donald Trump. Donald Trump Jr. Elon and others on X in reference to posted evidence from the root, from the letters, the safety issues.”
They have used different social networks and all accounts connected to the administration trying to show the community’s serious concerns for land and people’s safety.
“Each container has about 50,000 pounds of lithium, which lithium cannot be mitigated,” White said. “Once it’s on fire, it’s on fire.”
White said she hopes the company will wait until the technology is safer and wont endanger the people of Van Zandt County
“As our Congressman Lance Gooden said, we’re not your testing ground,” White said. “We’re not here for you to test your technology out, fail in our safeguards, wait until it’s ready. That’s my message, it’s not ready.”
