Greenidge Bitcoin Mining on Seneca Lake
Seneca Meadows Landfill: Latest News
Texas Waste Giant Wrote $200,000 Check To Help Flip Seneca Falls Board In Favor of Seneca Meadows Landfill
SENECA FALLS, Feb. 9, 2022 — Twelve days before the November election, the Texas-based owner of Seneca Meadows Inc. contributed $200,000 to an advocacy group devoted to helping a pair of Republican candidates win seats on the five-member Seneca Falls town board.
Frank Sinicropi and Kaitlyn Laskoski went on to defeat two incumbent Democrats who had voted against granting SMI, the state’s largest landfill, a local operating permit and had favored closing the waste facility for good in 2025.
Last week the new board members voted to grant the landfill its local permit without conditions despite objections from opponents who said uncontrolled SMI odors continue to violate state and local laws.
The $200,000 check from Waste Connections Inc., the nation’s third largest waste management company, dwarfed the total combined campaign contributions reported by the four candidates, which totaled less than $5,000.
The out-of-state contribution to Responsible Solutions for New York (RSNY) helped fund a public relations blitz aimed at convincing voters that closing the landfill would drive up their property taxes.
Latest News on Seneca Lake Bitcoin Mining
The Seneca County Democratic Committee applauds the work of Seneca Lake Guardian in protecting the natural resources, beauty and health of Seneca County. For more information on their work, visit their website: Seneca Lake Guardian
VICTORY! DEC Denies Greenidge Generation’s Title V Permits
July 1, 2022 After a year+ of advocacy, enviros, electeds, winemakers, and more celebrate precedent-setting decision; urge Governor Hochul to sign moratorium DRESDEN, NY (06/30/2022) (readMedia)-- Today, after a five-month delay and years of advocacy from more than 1,000 local businesses, organizations, bipartisan elected officials, winemakers, labor unions, and more, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) finally denied the Title V Air Permit renewal for Greenidge Generation. Using grandfathered-in permits, Greenidge has been pumping greenhouse gases into the air 24/7 and harming Seneca Lake just to mine Bitcoin, posing a major threat to the local $3 billion, 60,000-employee agritourism economy. "This is an incredible, precedent-setting moment for everyone who has fought side by side with the Finger Lakes community. Governor Hochul and the DEC stood with science and the people, and sent a message to outside speculators: New York's former fossil fuel-burning plants are not yours to re-open as gas-guzzling Bitcoin mining cancers on our communities," said Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian. "Now, it's up to Governor Hochul to finish the job by signing the cryptomining moratorium bill. Especially in light of this morning's EPA v. WV decision, she has a real opportunity to protect New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act -- and lead the nation – by acting now." Located on the shores of Seneca Lake, Greenidge operated over 20,000 Bitcoin mining machines and planned to expand to over 32,500 machines, with visible smokestacks pumping dirty fossil fuels into the air 24/7. It was on track to emit over one million tons of CO2 each year, equal to that of 100,000 homes. Greenidge also sucked up to 139 million gallons of water each day from Seneca Lake and dumped it back in at up to 108 degrees. Gregory Boyer, director of SUNY's Great Lakes Research Consortium, warned about Greenidge's potential to cause toxic algal blooms, which can be dangerous or fatal to humans and other animals in Seneca Lake, making this water source for 100,000 people completely unusable for drinking, bathing, and other needs.
Seneca Falls Trash Update
Seneca Falls Trash updates
Update April 2021: Composting!
The town of Seneca Falls, through the efforts of the Waste Management Committee, has contracted with Natural Upcycling from Linwood NY to begin composting food waste and other compostable materials, thereby pulling much of what smells out of the landfill. So far, we have 5 restaurants putting their food waste in special totes outside their doors, next to the ones that go to the landfill. These totes are emptied and rinsed out once a week by Natural Upcycling which takes the waste to one of two facilities that do anaerobic digesting, turning it into biogas, sometimes referred to as renewable natural gas. The following restaurants are part of our first rollout: Parker’s 84 Fall, El Bajio, Downtown Deli, and Café XIX. We hope to add more to that list soon and to begin a resident’s component shortly, as well. Sadly, while we will be pulling out the materials that make “our” landfill smell, the vast majority of what goes into that growing pile does not come from us. However, we must do our part to to reduce the pile, and to set a model for other communities.
--Virginia Konz
Earlier Posts
The Town of Seneca Falls has formed a Waste Management Advisory Committee to deal with the current issues surrounding our host agreement with Seneca Meadows and also to make plans to promote recycling in a changing environment and encourage composting, perhaps even in a town-wide location (as had been proposed a few years ago).
The members of this committee are Supervisor Mike Ferrara, Democrat Councilman Doug Avery, longtime environmental advocate Barb Reese, and SCDC members Dan Babbitt, Jean Gilroy and Ginny Konz.
The committee plans to benefit from the experience of Geneva and Clifton Springs, two towns which have received grants to help them set up town-wide recycling/composting programs.
The most serious and difficult issue being discussed by the committee is landfill odor. Most recently, Democratic Town Council Members Doug Avery, Steve Churchill and Dave Delelys have asked that the granting of the annual operating permit to Seneca Meadows be delayed until the problem is better addressed. In particular, they have emphasized the need for an independent odor complaint monitoring system: the current situation, in which Seneca Meadows employees keep track of and evaluate complaints from residents, has resulted in a lack of trust from the public, a perception that “the fox is guarding the henhouse.” Even town supervisor Mike Ferrara has acknowledged the widespread frustration with odor issue: “Many of the residents who have been filing odor complaints,” he said at a recent hearing,” have been doing so for several years.”
Update July 2020.The committee is checking up on a company called Envirosuite, which we hope would be able to help the town independently monitor and respond to complaints about odors coming from the landfill, for an estimated $73,000 per year, much less than the 6 figures Seneca Meadows claimed this would cost.
We also are pushing Seneca Meadows regarding the staging of trucks that show up after hours, and hence are stuck there until the morning. And we are curious as to whether hydrogen sulfide gas emissions are being monitored. We are in touch with the DEC operative who works at the landfill, hoping to get straight answers to some of our questions. - Virginia Konz
Read more about the recent efforts of these Town Councillors, and about the recent public hearing:
Do You Love NY State Parks? Thank a Democrat!
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt took unprecedented action to put Americans to work with new agencies like the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Conservative critics charged that these agencies wasted money on “make work” projects. But CCC and WPA workers built thousands of roads, bridges, tunnels, parks, airports, schools, courthouses, post offices and other public buildings. Agency artists created nearly 500,000 works of public art and brought theater, oral histories, music and dance to communities around the nation.
In our part of New York you can still-- nearly 100 years later—enjoy the beautiful stonework stairs and bridges built by the WPA and CCC in Letchworth, Robert Treman, Fillmore Glen and Taughannock State Parks.
The Seneca County Democratic Committee Believes that Climate Change is Real
Check this page for news about efforts to combat climate change, pollution and other threats to our health and the planet, locally and globally.
