The short version
A Bitcoin-mining and data-center operation has run on the old Reynolds / Alcoa East site in Massena since 2017. The company that runs it — NYDIG, operating locally as NCCS (North Country Collocation Services) — wants to expand it into one of the largest such operations in the country, on the bank of the St. Lawrence River, in our town.
That expansion is being reviewed right now. Nothing has been approved. The board has not taken a vote, there is no final site plan, and the board itself has said multiple public hearings are still required before anything is decided. This is the window where the public actually has a say — and most of Massena doesn't know it's open.
What's there now vs. what's proposed
The company says it has operated on the site since 2017 (the operation was previously known as Coinmint), employing about 60 people.
What's proposed, in the company's words, is to "expand and modernize" the campus to roughly 635 megawatts of power capacity — and grow to about 200 employees, with up to 2,000 construction jobs over an 18-to-24-month build of three buildings.
Where
The site is 182 & 194 County Road 45, Massena — the former Alcoa East / Reynolds aluminum-smelter campus on the St. Lawrence River. That address is stated verbatim in the town's own May 21, 2026 Planning Board minutes.
How big — putting 635 megawatts in plain terms
Power use for a project like this is measured in megawatts (MW). Here is the scale, built from numbers in the public record:
- The most recent public figure for the operation's current draw is about 166 MW (late 2024). The site is mid-transition from Coinmint to NYDIG, so today's exact draw may differ. The expansion targets roughly 635 MW — close to four times that figure.
- The company describes that 635 MW as 435 MW already approved plus 200 MW pending.
- 635 MW is an enormous, concentrated load — a small city's worth of electricity demand on one industrial parcel, running 24 hours a day, every day.
- St. Lawrence County's Planning Director, Jason Pfotenhauer, has publicly noted that of the 635 MW the project needs, only about 200 MW is actually accounted for — one reason the project is far from settled.
Where it is in the process — right now
This is the part that matters most, because it's where the public still has leverage.
- The review has barely started. This is a SEQR review (the State Environmental Quality Review — New York's environmental-review law). As of late June 2026, no "determination of significance" has been made. That determination is the fork in the road: a Positive Declaration forces a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) — a deep, public study — while a Negative Declaration ends the deep review. Neither has happened yet.
- The board's own chair confirmed how early it is. Planning Board Chair Vance Fleury said, "We have not even set up for a preliminary site plan." The developer's own attorney called the SEQR review "just the beginning."
- It is moving through the machinery. At the June 25 Planning Board meeting the board discussed hiring consultants and choosing a lead agency for the review. By one resident's account, the project was then passed toward the Zoning Board — a detail from a resident's public post the night of the meeting, not yet the official record.
- Public hearings are still required. The board has said multiple public hearings must happen before any approval, with dates posted at massena.us, in North Country Now, and on local radio. No first hearing date has been set yet.
Bottom line: the decisions that matter haven't been made. "Get informed and show up" is not too late — it's exactly on time.
Why a 635-megawatt meeting drew about 11 people
The June 25 meeting was a make-up date — and the way it was noticed is a big part of why almost no one was in the room. From the town's own website and its RSS feed:
- The Planning Board's regular June 18 meeting was scheduled, then cancelled — but per the town's RSS feed, the cancellation notice wasn't posted until June 22, days after the original meeting date.
- The make-up meeting was set for June 25. Its agenda first went online roughly a day ahead — dated "Thursday, June 26" (the wrong date), with no room listed — then was quietly swapped about 90 minutes later for a corrected version (June 25, Room 30). We could find no louder, separate notice that the date and room had changed.
- The data-center item itself was inside a PDF, not searchable text on the page — easy to miss for anyone watching the site.
We are not accusing anyone of breaking the law. But a cancelled-then-rescheduled meeting, noticed roughly a day ahead, first mis-dated, with the key item buried in a PDF, is how a decision this big ends up in front of about 11 residents (a figure from a resident's account of that night). See the agendas and timestamps for yourself →
What it means for residents
Three concerns hold up under scrutiny. We state each one honestly, including its limits.
1. It would be built on contaminated ground
The site is former-smelter land carrying PCBs, PAHs, dioxins, and metals that were capped and contained in place under federal cleanup, right beside a monitored river-sediment cap. Heavy construction — excavation, grading, dewatering, stormwater — raises real questions about whether that cap stays intact. To be accurate: this is contaminated former-smelter land beside a federal river cleanup, not a listed Superfund/NPL site.
2. Around-the-clock noise
Operations like this are loud. The company told the board its studies show 40 dB at the nearest homes — "comparable to a refrigerator hum." But 40 dB is already at the threshold where the World Health Organization says nighttime noise begins to harm health. And independent measurements at a comparable facility in North Tonawanda, NY ran 70–90 dB — enough that the city exceeded its nighttime limit every night, issued citations, and passed a moratorium. We are not claiming 70–90 dB in Massena — that is the comparison, not a measurement here.
3. Your electric bill
A 635 MW load is enormous. When a crypto operation scaled up in Plattsburgh, NY, residential electric bills spiked and the city became the first in the U.S. to pause crypto mining. The company says it pays "full market rates" and gets "no discounted power."