After months of delay, NY still reviewing 4,000 public comments for Finger Lakes power plant owned by Bitcoin miners

gothamist

Seneca Lake residents such as Yvonne Taylor are preparing for tourism season this month by hauling out the docks and patio furniture, but a cloud is looming over her joy at the start of sunny, busy days.

Taylor and other local business owners are waiting anxiously for Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deliver a decision on whether they will deny or approve the air permit for Greenidge Generation, a natural gas-fired power plant that makes more than $100 million a year mining Bitcoin.

That decision has been delayed more than three months, while the original permits expired nearly seven months ago. One of the major reasons for the wait, according to the DEC, is the nearly 4,000 public comments submitted on November 19th, 2021.

At a Monday morning press conference, two Cornell University researchers disclosed that they had reviewed all those comments in less than a week — and found that 98.8% were strongly opposed to renewal of a for-profit power plant running 24/7 with very little public use.

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