PO BOX 505 Penn Yann NY 14527

preservethefingerlakes@gmail.com
By Email

To the Town of Torrey Board,

The Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes requests the Town Board to consider a temporary (3 month) moratorium on the expansion of data centers in the Town of Torrey:

• To allow time to complete the sound tests, time to review the Zoning Law to clarify the role the protection of Seneca Lake and the Keuka Outlet should play in planning board decisions;
• To consider hiring a separate acoustic consultant, at the expense of Greenidge, as allowed in the Zoning Law to determine the impact of 24/7 noise on the area;
• To evaluate how the potential impacts that 300,000 MWH/year of\ energy (the amount of electricity needed to power 30,000 homes for a year) should be evaluated whether or not they are “before the grid.”

The Planning Board did not conduct the review consistent with the Town Zoning Law or the State Environmental Quality Review Law (SEQR) or take the required “hard look” at the environmental impacts.

The Torrey Zoning Law. https://www.townoftorrey.org/laws/pdf_45.pdf, § 98.105 Review Criteria requires that:

• “The proposed use will not adversely impact adjacent properties, existing infrastructure or environmentally sensitive features on or near the site such as steep slopes, Seneca Lake or other bodies of water, water courses, the Outlet Trail, mature woodlands, or wetlands;”
• The proposed use will not adversely impact adjacent properties with regard to excessive or unreasonable disturbance such as noise, light, glare, vibration, shadow, vapors, smoke, fumes, dust, particulate emissions or odors.

The Planning Board never asked or answered either of these questions in its review of the project.

The EAF Part 1, submitted by the Greenidge Generation, LLC, described:

• the project site as the whole Greenidge Generating facility, approximately 139 acres;
• the total acreage to be “physically disturbed” as 1.3 acres;
• the demand for energy will increase by “300,000 Megawatt hours a year;” and
• the construction and operation of the project will create noise.

In conducting its review and the completion of EAF Part 2, the PB segmented this project, and only considered the 1.3 acres, without considering the obvious environmental impacts of producing an additional 300,000 Megawatt hours a year, enough to power 30,000 homes. This project may have no impact on the grid, but it certainly impacts the environment.

In the EAF Part 3, the PB determined that “the project will have a significant adverse impact on the environment, that impact will be avoided or substantially mitigated because of the following requirements imposed by the Lead Agency” (in this case, the Planning Board):

1. All power will be generated on site with no impact to the grid.
2. Noise Leveling testing will verify compliance to the Town of Torrey Zoning Code.
3. Applicant will fulfill all New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS DEC) requirements relative to the Greenidge Generation operations.

On the issue of environmental impact, the Planning Board decided there were significant adverse impacts, but that was DEC’s job to mitigate and not the PB responsibility, as stated in the Zoning Law.

At the September 21 meeting, the PB was presented with evidence that:

• the thermal discharge for the CURRENT operation exceeded the legal limits for discharge to a trout stream and that the thermal study would not be completed until at least 2022;
• the required screens on the intakes from Seneca Lake to protect the fish are not installed, nor will they be for several years, and
• that the project will require a significant amount of additional electricity which will significantly increase the use of natural gas, air emissions, water withdrawal, and discharge of more heated water into the Keuka Outlet.

The fact that the DEC is allowing extensive time for correction of these impacts, should not make these impacts acceptable to the Town of Torrey.

The Zoning Law was clearly enacted to protect adjacent properties from excessive or continuous noise. The impact should be assessed on residences, not at Greenidge’s fence. And the presence of the lake as the East boundary, requires an analysis of noise over water. This decision proves that the current Zoning Law is unclear and the intent needs to be clarified by the Town Board. The Town should conduct its own noise study.

In 2019, before the data center started operations, Greenidge used about 6% of its electrical generating capacity and 24 million gallons/day of its 139 million gallon/day allocation.

According to an interview recently in Forbes: “Greenidge wants to increase its energy consumption. The company has plans to use the plant’s total capacity of 104MW next year.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertanzalone/2020/08/13/bitcoin-mining-can-be-profitable-if-you-generate-the-power/#26be918a5702

That is enough to power 100,000 homes for a year. The Town needs to implement a moratorium to assess the impacts of this project on the environment, Seneca Lake and the Keuka Outlet, and the community.

Copies of the CTPFL statement introduced at the PB meeting, minutes, Environmental Assessment Forms and Site Plan Approval and the Environmental Notice Bulletin are under Critical Documents on our webpage at https://preservethefingerlakes.org/

I look forward to hearing from you,

Sincerely,

President