Not a single thing you said about batteries is true. Pumped hydro is in no way competitive with batteries for most locations. In the future it is likely they won't be competitive in any location.
Better still; the amount of deployed batteries world wide is projected to overtake the amount of deployed hydro this year. Pumped hydro is barely growing. Battery capacity is growing exponentially to eclipse it this year. That's driven by pure economics. Cheaper, better, faster, etc.
Neither of these points are conflicting with my argument. Just because batteries are being deployed it (and I agree that it's cheaper and faster, but not necessarily better on all axes) doesn't mean that their manufacturer is not damaging the environment.
In fact, battery manufacture is not damaging the environment in most places where first-world people live, so perhaps they just don't care, but I think that's pretty sad.
If that wasn't clear, I wasn't trying to challenge your argument; just adding to it. And you are right by adding more arguments to the pile. Not disagreeing at all.