Comparte esta publicación! Acciones a tomar ahora con respecto al RITC (Tonawanda Coca-Cola) Centro de datos

We know folks are as interested in the data center development at the former Tonawanda Coke as we are, and we just wanted to share a few actions you can take right now. Please also note that we have a couple older blog posts that cover some of the topics below more in-depth.

• Almacenamiento solar y de baterías para Tonawanda Coke, No centros de datos!
• Send a Letter to the Public Service Commission – Make Industrial Data Centers Pay Their Fair Share!

1. primero, there are two important letter campaigns we urge you to use right now
   • Send a letter to the Public Service Commission regarding the energy use of data centers BY EOD WEDNESDAY MAY 13
   • Send a letter to our representatives in Albany urging them to co-sponsor and vote for the 3-year statewide moratorium bill (S9411/A10141) currently being considered. Currently the only WNY representatives who have publicly endorsed this bill are Assemblywoman McMahon and Senator Baskin. Due to the stalled budget, there will be a truncated legislative session this year, and this is a new bill, so we need to build pressure fast to push quick action by our representatives! We are also discussing participating in a lobby day in Albany on Wednesday May 13, possibly even filling a bus – if you are interested in this, por favor póngase en contacto con puente y fill out the Food and Water Watch registration page.
2. Segundo, regarding the Riverview Innovation Tech Campus at the former Tonawanda Coke site, we are currently reviewing the 400+ page application. We have it available to download, and would love additional help looking through it for issues. Please be aware, this is a 90mb download – click here to download.

   Hasta aquí, what we have seen is quite honestly not the worst of the worst practices, unlike at some of the other data centers in our area, including some owned and operated by the RITC developer – that’s not to say that there aren’t areas we want to see improved, and we still maintain that the best industrial use of the site is renewable energy generation and storage. We plan to finish our review before the next Town of Tonawanda SEQR committee meeting and will be sharing our specific points of concern by that time, and again will post that on our blog and share that on our social media.

   Mientras tanto, we are also urging folks to contact the Town of Tonawanda Town Board and Planning Board to ask that

   1. The Town pass a 6-12 month local moratorium on any data center development to develop a local zoning amendment to regulate data centers, and send a letter to legislators in Albany in support of the statewide moratorium bill, y
   2. Separate the final phase of the remediation of Tonawanda Coke from the first phase of the data center development proposal. The final phase of the clean-up at 3875 River Road is capping remaining contamination in place (basically pumping concrete into the ground to solidify it so it cannot move with groundwater), and that cap is also going to in part be the concrete foundation for a warehouse. We want the Town to make it clear that approval of pouring a concrete foundation for a warehouse does NOT mean approval for a data center, and that these two phases need to be separated. We will have a letter campaign up by the end of this week to aid in submitting comments on these points as well, and will update this post to include that link.

Finalmente, we also want to again share that we are launching a dedicated campaign regarding both the RITC project and issues about data centers broadly in Erie and Niagara County, and will be kicking things off with a a meeting on Wednesday May 20 – puede register now at this link. This meeting will be available both in-person at Trinity Church in downtown Buffalo as well as online.

You can become a Clean Air member right now by making a donation of any amount to support our work. The more grassroots donations we receive, the less we need to rely on grants and more autonomous we can be in taking on this fight.

We are also taking pre-orders for lawn signs that we will have available June 1 to make your opposition to a data center at RITC, or generally the pattern of unregulated industrial data centers broadly, visible in Tonawanda and our community at large.

If anyone has any questions or if you want to get involved in this campaign, please don’t hesitate to reach out to bridge@cacwny.org – they will reply as soon as they are able.