Editor:
My name is LeeAnn Mullen, owner of Tahoe Pines Wellness Center, LLC & Tahoe Pines Custom Sewing & Designs. I’m a resident of Basom, with STAMP located in the field behind my home/business.
I’m writing to express the many environmental and health concerns with a data center. The GCEDC (Genesee County Economic Development Center) approved a data center in March 2025, then recently revoked the approvals. They claim the developer, stream data center, is going to submit a proposal for a larger data center at the STAMP site!
After 35 years of medical management and wellness, I purchased property online in 2009, specifically for Tahoe Pines Wellness Center, LLC. The aesthetic beauty of pine trees, the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and the naturistic beauty was the attraction! It appeared to be the perfect location for an entrepreneur originally from Lake Tahoe to open a wellness center!
There’s numerous reasons why the datacenter is a horrible idea for our community and surrounding areas! By attending the Tonawanda Seneca Nation community meetings, I have learned much of the following information, along with these additional resources; frontiergroup.org, ceds.org and hivenet.com.
GCEDC intends on giving $272 million of our taxpayer dollars to a multinational company (Stream) to build a massive data center! They must not be allowed to force a dangerous monstrosity on our community! I encourage our politicians, GCEDC, Stream Data Center, their corporate owner, Apollo Global Management and community residents to take a look at the negative impact the data center is going to have on our community members and surrounding areas!
It is because of the following health and environmental impacts that I adamantly oppose this data center, not in any order of importance!
1. Noise and disruption – Data centers run massive cooling systems and backup generators 24/7 creating constant humming! They emit noise exceeding 100 dB (an average concert is 80 dB). The noise can travel up to 8 mile and will cause extreme anxiety to people & animals, domestic and wild alike!
2. Power grid strain – these facilities consume enormous amounts of electricity, sometimes as much as small cities! This can stress local power infrastructure and potentially affect reliability or cost for residents. Will residents be in a blackout when we need our electricity the most?
3. Water usage – Data centers use a significant amount of water for cooling, which will strain local water supplies. According to local newscasters, we’re officially in a “drought” in our region! Residents may need to compete with the data center for this essential resource!
4. Increased traffic – during the construction phase, traffic on local roads will increase, which are not designed for heavy commercial vehicles.
5. Property values and community character – with the development of large industrial buildings, the community will not have the feel of our Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge with wild animals roaming in our backyard. Our friends on the reservation, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation will be stripped of available wildlife and medicinal plant land that they have had in their families for years and would like to keep for years to come.
6. Limited local benefits – data centers create relatively few permanent jobs once built, so our community will fuel their costs bearing without seeing proportional economic benefits!
7. Risk of Fire – the industrial machines run so hot, the chance of fire is significantly high! The fires are rated as class D and are only extinguishable with a specific dry powder. It is unclear if we have the substance available to our local fire stations, nor trained staff to utilize the powder substance, or a place to store the powder substance?
8. Most importantly, health and environmental concerns – The massive energy consumption contributes to carbon emissions, with electromagnetic fields and other environmental impacts! Primary health risk from air pollution include harmful air pollutants such as fine, particle matter and nitrogen oxide (NOx). These pollutants take an immediate toll on human, plantand animal health, triggering asthma symptoms in humans, heart attack and even cognitive decline!
9. Particular matter concerns – The biggest Challenger tiny particles, 2.5 CM or less in diameter, which can travel deep into the respiratory tract and lungs. They’re considered a “non-threshold” pollutant, meaning there’s no safe level of exposure.
10. Diesel generator emissions – data centers rely on backup diesel generators that produce significantly higher emission rates and other power sources. A typical diesel generator can release 200 to 600 times more NOx then a natural gas power plant producing the same amount of electricity!
11. Sale of impact – in 2003, air pollution from US data centers was attributed to being responsible for an estimated $6 billion in public health damages, with projections reaching $10 to $ 20 billion annually by 2030. While the specific carcinogenic risk requires more research, the documented respiratory and cardiovascular health impacts from data center emissions are already significant concerns for nearby communities!
It is with sincere compassion that you are all encouraged to take a deeper look at the risk versus benefit of Stream Data Center that the GCEDC is trying to force upon us for monetary gain! Is it going to result in your loved one’s health being compromised from the known carcinogen risk?
Please write to your politician, sign the petition at the Tonawanda Seneca Nation office, get involved, say no to stream data center and GCEDC! Thank you for your consideration!
Respectfully submitted,
LeeAnn Mullen
Basom
