NYS Senator Kristen Gonzalez Kicks Off Statewide “NYS Fights AI Data Centers” with a Clean Air-led Tour of Erie-Niagara Data Center Projects

Erie and Niagara County began grappling with hyperscale data centers a full decade ago, starting with cryptomining operations drawn here by the cheap energy and water resources, local elected officials eager for any new industrial developments, a lack of local regulations, and the possibility of building projects at vacant industrial facilities.

In June, the NYS Assembly and Senate passed the Responsible Data Centers Development Act (S10642/A11560), a bill which would initiate a 1-year moratorium on data center development projects larger than 20MW, and which is tied to a number of regulatory studies and action, including some basic baseline standards, like a statewide comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement study, prevailing wage and “Buy American” requirements, requirements for on-site renewable power, and establishment of a separate water and energy classes for data center projects to prevent costs being passed onto other ratepayers.

In response to hundreds of in-person visits, phone calls, and emails from residents all throughout our region, many WNY representatives voted for this bill, namely Senators Baskin and Zellner, Majority Leader Peoples-Stokes, and Assemblymembers Conrad, McMahon and Rivera. 

Governor Hochul followed with an Executive Order which carried forward some of the bill’s provisions, including a 1-year moratorium on data center projects larger than 50MW. While we at the Clean Air Coalition of WNY applaud the Governor’s bold action, the first of its kind in the nation which immediately put a pause on the most concerning private sector hyperscale data center projects across the state, we still urge her to sign the RDCDA, as it is wider in scope.

Given all this, when State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, the Chair of the Senate Internet and Technology Committee, reached out to let us know that she was kicking off a statewide NYS Fights AI Data Centers Tour with a stop in Buffalo, we jumped at the opportunity to give her a full court tour. 

Instead of the initial plan for a single town hall in Buffalo, our members instead led her through two town halls in Buffalo and Niagara Falls, and to six separate site visit stops to operating or proposed data center sites – a stop at the Tesla plant where Elon Musk has pursued the “Dojo” supercomputer, one at 1001 East Delavan in Buffalo (the former American Axle) where DigiPowerX operates a 19MW cryptomine, the Riverview Innovation Tech Campus at the the former Tonawanda Coke site, a stop at a resident’s home in North Tonawanda affected by the troubled DigiPowerX site, and two in Niagara Falls, the proposed 500 MW North East Data project in the Buffalo Avenue corridor and a stop at a historic site threatened by the Niagara Falls Redevelopment 140MW proposal. At the town halls, we also invited residents from other site fights in Erie and Niagara that we were not able to fit in the tour, like the TeraWulf data center in Barker NY, to participate in the panel discussions.

At every site, Senator Gonzalez and other state and local elected officials heard from residents not only about how these projects have upended their lives, but about how these projects add to existing environmental justice burdens like the current radiological crisis currently unfolding, and their visions for a more equitable future of industry rooted not in the same extractive economics which have stolen from our communities for generations, but instead in unionized renewable energy generated by and for our area.

Hyperscale data centers may or may not have a future in WNY – but local communities should make that determination, and should determine their own guidelines for how these projects should be built and operated. The Governor signing the Responsible Data Centers Development Act would put us closer to that future – click here to send her a letter urging her to take this important next step, and click here to send a letter to the leadership of Ontario Specialty Contracting and RITC to urge them to change their planned future use of the former Tonawanda Coke site from a data center to renewable energy projects.

Below are some photos of the day, as well as FAQ sheets we developed and shared for each site.