DEC signs agreement with Greenidge, ends legal battle

Bitcoin mining company Greenidge Generation has reached an agreement with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for an air permit at its site on the western shore of Seneca Lake. The move ends active litigation between the two parties.

The agreement includes an emissions reduction of 44 percent for permitted greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030, along with a mandate for a 25 percent reduction from Greenidge’s actual emissions. It also requires the company to submit a permit modification application.

“The agreement holds Greenidge Generation accountable to new proposed permit conditions that are protective of the community and brings the Greenidge facility in line with greenhouse gas and co-pollutant emissions levels consistent with the (Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act),” a statement from DEC reads.

Greenidge noted that its status as a quick-dispatch power generator will aid the state’s power grid amid increased electricity demand. The facility is a retrofitted natural gas-powered plant with a capacity of 106 to 108 megawatts. Greenidge took over the location in 2017 and began proof-of-work cryptomining in 2019. The company also has cryptocurrency facilities in Mississippi, North Dakota and South Carolina.

“This new permit includes historic emissions reductions that go far beyond anything required by the CLCPA or ever implemented in New York and validates our national model cryptocurrency operation, which does not pull power from the grid, but rather sends power to it daily,” says Greenidge President Dale Irwin in a statement.

The local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers also spoke in support of the decision.

Greenidge’s legal battle began in 2022 when the DEC denied its air permit for CLCPA noncompliance. Over the following three years and legal fights, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a temporary moratorium on cryptomining.

At the time, local climate advocacy group Seneca Lake Guardian lauded her action and encouraged her to “finish the job” by shutting Greenidge Generation down completely. However, Greenidge was exempted from the moratorium and Hochul declined to push any further legislation.

Greenidge also caught another break from the state last year when DEC’s permit denial was annulled, laying the groundwork for this agreement and permit renewal.

Now, both the state and Greenidge will withdraw their appeals and discontinue the pending administrative hearing.

“While this process has been lengthy, we thank the Hochul Administration and the current team at NYSDEC for allowing the law and the facts to drive policy. We’re pleased with this tough, fair new permit, and happy to put this process where it has belonged for years – in the rear-view mirror,” Irwin says.

Local climate advocates, however, slammed DEC’s decision. They claim that Greenidge’s facility has negatively impacted the region by increasing gas emissions, polluting water with thermal discharge, and contaminating groundwater used for the region’s agriculture, especially in its wineries.

“Originally, they said it was only going to be operated as a ‘peaker-plant.’ It was only going to operate about 6 percent of the year, and only do that to provide power to the public in times of high demand,” says Yvonne Taylor, co-founder and vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian. “Then, once they got up and running, they installed these bitcoin mining machines and the power being produced was not going to the public, but to fuel these machines.”

“Along with that, they’re raining down things like formaldehyde, mercury, lead, benzine, on to our homes, our farms, and our vineyards. Those places are (the region’s) lifeblood,” Taylor continues. “Seneca Lake is also a drinking water source for over 100,000 people. Greenidge is allowed to withdraw up to 139 million gallons of water every single day and dump it in hot back into the lake, an area where we’re already experiencing increasing harmful algae blooms, a toxin to humans and animals.”

Seneca Lake Guardian filed a lawsuit in 2023 to shut the Greenidge Generating Station. The suit was dismissed in federal court later that same year.

Seneca Lake Guardian is upset with Hochul’s decision.

“She put out her own press release applauding the region for getting these accolades of being the best viticulture area in the country,” Taylor says of Hochul. “Yet at the same turn, she’s letting us down by capitulating to Greenidge.”

Eric Wood, senior environmental program coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group, says, “The Governor has been ordered by the State’s courts to follow the Climate Law, but her decision to approve permits for the Greenidge fracked gas power plant for a private cryptomining facility flouts that order. “

Taylor also levied criticism against Greenidge’s impact on the local economy. She says it overemphasizes its impact on jobs in the local economy. In the past, the company has said that it created around 40 to 50 full-time jobs with additional impact through electricians and other contracted work.

“Tourism in the Finger Lakes is our driving economy engine,” Taylor outlines instead. “It brings in $4 billion worth of revenue into New York State’s economy every year and supports 60,000 jobs.”

For his part, Irwin says that the data center has brought high–tech jobs and opportunity to a region of New York which “has been economically underserved for far too long.”

An evidentiary hearing for Greenidge’s air permit renewal application has been scheduled for next week.

Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist.

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