Submit a public comment demanding a full Environmental Impact Statement ~3 minutes
This is the highest-leverage action. Email the Town Clerk now with the letter below, add your name and address, and ask the Planning Board and Town Board to require a full Environmental Impact Statement. Email is the fastest path onto the written record.
To the Town of Massena Planning Board and Town Board: Re: SEQR review — proposed NYDIG / NCCS data-center expansion, former Reynolds Metals / Alcoa East site I am a Massena resident writing about the environmental review now underway. I am not asking you to decide the project today — I am asking you to make sure it gets a real, complete review before anyone votes. For a project of this magnitude — roughly 635 megawatts on a former aluminum-smelter site with documented contamination on the St. Lawrence River — I respectfully urge the lead agency to issue a POSITIVE DECLARATION and require a full Environmental Impact Statement. Under SEQR, an action that "may result in a significant adverse impact" requires one, and a Negative Declaration must be supported by hard data, not assurances. Three impacts warrant that full study: 1. Disturbance of contaminated ground. The site's uplands carry PCBs, PAHs, dioxins, and metals that were capped and contained in place under federal cleanup, immediately adjacent to a monitored river-sediment cap. Heavy new construction — excavation, grading, dewatering, increased stormwater — raises real questions about cap integrity and re-mobilizing contamination toward the river. The EIS should analyze cap integrity, soil management, dewatering, and stormwater controls. 2. Energy and electric-rate impact. A 635 MW load is enormous. When a crypto operation scaled up in Plattsburgh, New York, residential electric bills spiked and the city became the first in the United States to pause crypto mining. The EIS should analyze grid impact, who pays for any required upgrades, and the effect on local electric rates and jobs per megawatt. 3. Noise. In North Tonawanda, New York, a comparable crypto facility exceeded the city's nighttime noise limit every night — drawing citations and a two-year moratorium on new crypto mining. The applicant has committed to acoustic modeling under SEQR; I ask that the model be worst-case, nighttime, at the property line, measured against state and local standards. Finally, I ask the board to require the applicant to put real numbers on the record before any determination of significance: the cooling technology and a full water mass-balance (the company states a closed-loop system — that should be verified, not assumed), projected water use and any discharge, worst-case acoustic modeling, and any on-site backup generators with their air permits. And if the board ever moves toward approval despite these concerns, I ask that the protections be written in as enforceable conditions, not assurances: an enforceable nighttime noise limit at the property line; independent monitoring of the contamination caps, with results made public; a decommissioning bond so the town never inherits an abandoned site; a written answer on who pays for grid upgrades; and the company's own representations — jobs, tax contributions, no discounted power — entered as enforceable conditions of any approval. Please do not accept a Negative Declaration for a project of this size on a site like this. Require the Environmental Impact Statement, so the community has the facts before any vote. Thank you. [Your name] [Your address, Massena NY] [Date]
The nine specifics to demand — put these in your comment
A general “do a full study” is easy to brush off. Naming the exact things forces them onto the record. Ask the board to require:
- A full water mass-balance. The company claims a “closed-loop” cooling system using under 4,000 gallons — make them prove it with real numbers, and write the closed loop into any permit as a condition.
- The air permits and enforceable runtime limits for the 115 backup generators — the company's own count — on the record, in the environmental review.
- A study of the contaminated ground — cap integrity, soil handling, dewatering, and stormwater control — before any heavy construction disturbs it.
- Worst-case, nighttime noise modeling at the property line, against state and local limits — not one reassuring number.
- An enforceable nighttime noise limit at the property line, written into any approval. North Tonawanda could cite its crypto plant only because a hard 50 dB limit existed — a model with no limit behind it protects no one.
- Independent cap-integrity monitoring — not applicant-paid-only — with results made public. The caps hold PCBs, dioxins, and metals in place; the town shouldn't have to take the builder's word that they stay intact.
- A decommissioning / abandonment bond. Massena already knows what it means to be left holding an industrial site — the smelters closed, and the contamination stayed. The town should never inherit this one.
- Who pays for grid upgrades — answered in writing — along with what a 635-MW load does to local electric rates (Plattsburgh's bills spiked when crypto scaled up there).
- The company's promises made enforceable. 200 jobs, a 5× tax contribution, no discounted power — entered as enforceable conditions of any approval, with consequences if they aren't met. Assurances are not commitments.
Want the deeper explanation before you write? Read the submitted analyses on the closed-loop water claim and the 200-jobs projection.
The core asks are folded into the letter above — this is the plain-language checklist so you can also raise them out loud at a meeting. New asks get added here as the process moves; the list grows with the record.
Show up to the next meeting one afternoon
Find the current meeting: check the notice at the top of this site for the next confirmed Town Board, Planning Board, or Zoning Board of Appeals meeting. We also post updates on the Massena Data Center Watch Facebook Page and in the Watch Community Group.
For the town's official agendas and any last-minute changes, check its Agenda Center. Planning Board meetings are open to the public.
One thing worth saying out loud when you're in that room: on July 14, Governor Hochul signed an executive order freezing new state data-center permits statewide — not because one town complained, but because the state itself decided facilities this size threaten water, the grid, and ratepayers badly enough to stop and rewrite the rules. That doesn't require Massena to pause. But it's fair to ask the board why it's moving ahead under the old rules while Albany just stopped to rewrite them.
This is the board that reviews the project itself — its site plan and the SEQR environmental call — per the town's own June 25 minutes, while the Town Board separately rewrites the Industrial-Zone code and drafts the host community agreement with NYDIG. A room with 100 neighbors in it changes how a board votes. Bring someone. Where it stands →
Get on the alert list ~30 seconds
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Share this ~90 seconds
Send this site to five people in Massena. By one resident's account, only about a dozen people were in the room at the June 25 meeting. The simplest way to change the outcome is to make sure far more than that show up next time.
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After your town comment is in, the next highest-impact moves are pressuring Albany and contacting the local officials who will shape what happens next.