They carried signs that read “A.I. Will Steal Your Job!!! No Data Centers” and “This land is Tonawanda Seneca’s, not polluting data centers.”
The opposition numbered in the dozens. Residents and environmental advocates packed a fire hall this week in the small town of Alabama, Genesee County, for a public hearing on what’s become the latest flashpoint at STAMP, the Western New York Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park.
STAMP is a 1,250-acre plot northwest of Batavia that sits adjacent to the Tonawanda Reservation and across the road from the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and state wildlife management areas — as well as the patch of forest commonly referred to as “the Big Woods” by the reservation residents.
Monday’s hearing involved three competing data center proposals, ranging in size from 750,000 to 900,000 square feet. One stands to be selected.
“The Big Woods is my closest neighbor,” said Barbara Jonathan, a resident of the Tonawanda Reservation. “I have a cousin who is 6 years old, and in 20 years, I’m not going to be here. But she’s going to be here.”
STAMP had long been the subject of controversy from its inception in 2009, both from environmental activists and the Seneca Nation. The park is a project of the Genesee County Economic Development Center, the county government’s primary economic development agency. And while millions of dollars have been spent preparing the site, little to nothing has been developed here.
To have three data center proposals vying for development reflects how the once niche industry has exploded, as companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI further embrace artificial intelligence.
The market saw $225 billion in data center construction globally in 2023, according to Grand View Research, with steady growth projected through at least 2030. Estimates are that electricity demands to power these centers could double over the next five years, according to Deloitte.
Either of the three proposals at STAMP would be the largest data center in the region, if approved, according to Matt Hurlbutt of Greater Rochester Enterprise. He described the projects as “hyperscale AI” data centers, adding that while a first for this area they are largely in line with what is being built nationally.
What companies the STAMP data centers will host and what sort of operations they will be conducting is not entirely clear. But each stands to receive enormous tax benefits, both state and local, to develop on the site.
Opaque proposals
Development of STAMP did not begin in earnest until 2021, when the park got its first tenant, Plug Power.
That project spurred a bevy of lawsuits over wastewater drainage and a proposed pipeline into nearby Oak Orchard Creek. The pipeline was later halted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Plug Power, a hydrogen power firm rife with financial issues, paused construction. A spokesperson for GCEDC confirmed the Plug Power project is still on pause, but that the corporation is continuing to “check in with them periodically.”
The largest of the data center proposals comes from Dallas-based U.S. Stream Data Centers, seeking to build a 900,000 square-foot facility at a cost of $6.3 billion.
The other two projects, dubbed Project Potentia and Project Rampart, have offered nothing publicly to denote their corporate origin. All names listed for the projects in proposal documents belong to real estate investors and outside procurement specialists.
“The campus will focus on artificial intelligence data processing, computing and storage of third-party contracts,” the Minneapolis-based Project Potentia team wrote in its project proposal.
While the other proposals did not spell out potential uses, a GCEDC spokesperson said all expected to lease their space to a tenant or tenants. The spokesperson declined to elaborate on project details beyond what is in the proposals posted on the GCEDC website.
Project representatives did not attend the public hearing — drawing the ire of Melissa Smith, another resident of the Tonawanda Reservation.
“How dare you come to all of these people (with proposals), and you don’t even have your people that are going to build these things?” Smith said.
The U.S. Stream data project is seeking $471.6 million in sales and mortgage tax exemptions. Project Rampart, meanwhile, would invest $3.3 billion in exchange for $238.9 million in tax incentives. A Delaware limited liability company by the same name lists its principal as Tom Wasko, director of acquisitions for Washington, D.C.-based real estate investment firm PRP.
Project Potentia proposes investing $2.2 billion and is requesting $167.6 million in tax breaks.
Environmental concerns
The concerns about the data centers’, and the STAMP as a whole, effect on the surrounding ecosystem have long been paramount among the Tonawanda residents and environmental advocates.
“The data center would be one of the closest complexes to this exceptional forest,” Syracuse-based wildlife photographer Kristen Moser said of the wildlife refuge.
She began her remarks at the hearing by holding her cellphone up to the microphone and playing first a chorus of chirping, warbling and cawing birds – then the roaring drone of a truck.
“The sound of the trucks would be multiplied by the constant industrial sounds of the center,” Moser said. “This will not only impact wildlife in the Big Woods, it will forever destroy the peace and serenity of this sacred land for the people of Tonawanda.”
There also is a question of power supply.
The Stream proposal is estimated to need 250-megawatts of power, with a planned 600-megawatt substation at the site. For reference, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates one megawatt can power between 400 and 900 homes in a year. The three proposals’ lighting, security, and IT systems are planned to be run on diesel backup generators, with tank capacity of 9,500 gallons.
The Stream project’s largest pollutant output is carbon dioxide at 533 tons per year. That’s roughly the same as 116 passenger cars per year, according to the EPA.
While the EPA did not establish carbon dioxide limits for the site, thresholds for other pollutants are well above what the data centers are expected to produce.
But speakers at the public hearing were skeptical in the estimates. As they have for the 16 years since STAMP was proposed, they feared the unknown.
“We all know the history of them trying to put the pipeline going down into Medina,” Alabama resident Katie Rivers told the GCEDC board, adding: “...To me, that tells me you can’t be trusted.”
