Clean Air and Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper join over 600 organizations and businesses statewide to halt cryptocurrency mining in New York State 

Western New York Environmental Justice Organizations Call on Governor Hochul to Act on Cryptocurrency Mining 

Clean Air and Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper join over 600 organizations and businesses statewide to halt cryptocurrency mining in New York State 

Western New York environmental justice organizations join over 600 representatives from environmental, community, labor, and business groups and elected officials from across New York State to call on Governor Kathy Hochul to take immediate action on cryptocurrency mining. Clean Air Coalition  and  Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper are joining the call for Governor Hochul to establish a five-year moratorium on  “Proof-of-Work” Cryptocurrency Mining in NYS and to deny  the granting of air emissions permits for the Greenidge Generating Station and the Fortistar North Tonawanda Facility. Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining is currently unregulated in New York and goes against New York’s ambitious climate goals set in the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. 

“New York must take the lead on studying the impact of and creating regulations for proof of work cryptocurrency mining. Time and time again poor and working class people and people of color have borne the brunt of environmental and public health disasters caused by regulations rooted in racism, corporate greed and environmental shortsightedness. Governor Hochul must put her money where her mouth is on climate and take action today to advance environmental justice ”, — Jim Jones, Clean Air member and Tonawanda resident 

In New York, data mining operations using warehouses full of computers have set up shop in upstate areas siphoning electricity from New York’s grid, “re-powering” defunct fossil-fueled power plants, and seriously jeopardizing the state’s progress on and meeting mandates for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In Western New York, the Fortistar gas plant in North Tonawanda is on its way to being transformed into a cryptocurrency mining facility by DigiHost despite public outcry about the public health impact of increasing air emissions and water pollution into the surrounding community. 

GHG at the Fortistar North Tonawanda facility would exponentially increase should it become a Bitcoin facility as has been proposed. As a Bitcoin mining facility, emissions would skyrocket – the permit application states that the power plant’s potential CO2 emissions to be approximately thirty times its 2020 CO2 emissions.  The plant is also estimating large increases in several other harmful co-pollutants including sulfur oxide, nitrous oxide, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter that will impact local air quality and public  health.

“The Fortistar and Greenridge plants are the canary in the crypto coal mine. We urge Governor Hochul to take action to protect the health and dignity of people living near fossil fuel plants across New York State. There is no time to wait–we need action now before the whole house of cards falls down on working class people across the state”, Emily Terrana, Director of Organizing, Clean Air Coalition of Western New York. 

 The statewide coalition is in Albany today calling on Governor Hochul’s office and urging her to take swift action on instituting a five-year moratorium to study the impact of proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining on public health and the environment. The submission of the letter to Governor Hochul comes on the same day as the DEC’s hearing on the Title-V air quality permit for the Greenidge Generating Station, a current cryptocurrency mining operation, to urge the Hochul administration to deny the permit.  The Title IV air permit of the Fortistar facility is up for renewal by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in November. 

Clean Air encourages concerned community members to take action by visiting their toolkit at bit.ly/takeactioncrypto or by visiting their website at www.cacwny.org

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The Clean Air Coalition builds power by developing grassroots leaders who organize their communities to run and win environmental justice and public health campaigns in Western New York.