Bitcoin mining is spreading across the country like a cancer, harming communities. Whether it’s direct or indirect, you are being impacted by this industry- all to make a few very rich people even richer.

Bitcoin mining is spreading across the country like a cancer, harming communities. Whether it’s direct or indirect, you are being impacted by this industry- all to make a few very rich people even richer.

GUEST APPEARANCE: The fight against operations like Greenidge is far from over

Once again, Greenidge Generation tried to steamroll our community — and once again, they failed.

Last month, the regional director of the Department of Environmental Conservation shut down Greenidge’s latest attempt to stall and silence our ongoing fight against its harmful Bitcoin mining operation. They tried to delay the hearing. Denied. They tried to block our impacted community from participating in the proceedings, and from fighting for the health and safety of our region. Denied again.

While our fight is far from over, we’re proud to celebrate the wins along the way — important steps forward in our fight for clean air, water, and a better future for New York.

By now, everyone in the Finger Lakes region should know that the Greenidge Generation facility has become a symbol of the urgent clash between predatory corporate polluters and community-driven protectors. This fracked gas-burning Bitcoin mining facility emitted more than 818 million pounds of carbon dioxide in a single year, directly undermining the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. It also emits local air pollution, and is permitted to draw millions of gallons of water from Seneca Lake every day and discharge it, heated to higher temperatures, back into the lake, threatening this fragile ecosystem.

It’s been nearly three years since the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation denied the plant’s Title V air permit renewal, citing the millions of tons of climate-wrecking carbon emissions the plant spews out annually and in clear conflict with the CLCPA — but the facility continues to operate while it appeals the decision under the State Administrative Procedures Act. This is part of Greenidge’s ongoing strategy: to prolong legal proceedings for years, forcing the Finger Lakes community to suffer through nonstop noise, air, and water pollution while it continues to profit.

Greenidge has fought tooth and nail to continue operations at the expense of our lake, our economy, and our climate. All the while, our community has been on the front lines, demanding the state enforce its climate laws and shut the plant down for good.

Sadly, as the crypto-mining industry spreads like a cancer across the country, corporate interests are exploiting rural communities nationwide and degrading air, water, and environmental quality just to make a few rich people even richer. Here in New York, we’ve fought tirelessly to pass strong climate laws that are meant to put people over profit and protect our own. If those laws mean anything, Greenidge must be shut down for good.

As we continue to fight for a cleaner, healthier future, we’ll be submitting testimony for an upcoming hearing to be held this summer in Albany. Greenidge wanted to exempt us from this process, but we fought back — and we won. And, we’ll continue to show up, speak out, and make sure that decision-makers see this fight for what it is: a community standing up against corporate greed and unfettered pollution.

To everyone who has signed petitions, written letters, or shown up to rallies: Thank you. We’re in this together, and we’re not going to stop fighting until Seneca Lake is free from the grasp of polluting corporations that don’t think twice about our community, our economy, our climate, and our future.

Yvonne Taylor is co-founder and vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian, a Watkins Glen-based environmental group. Abi Buddington is an educator, business owner, and volunteer who is dedicated to listening, learning and protecting our community and environment.