GCEDC buries essential information in report about data center at STAMP

Editor:

On May 27, the GDEDC posted a 480-page “Geotechnical Report” for the North Campus of the STREAM US Data Centers facility proposed for the STAMP site in the Town of Alabama.

This report was posted (a) weeks after the end of the period of public comment, and (b) contained in a document given the misleading title “Supplemental Information.” This Report is the opposite of “supplemental”: it is fundamental to understanding what would actually be needed in order to construct the proposed facility.

The report states  that the soils of the North Campus are characterized by very poor drainage and are highly “compressible”, which means that the soil is incapable of supporting the proposed structure without massive geoengineering interventions – including the installation of concrete supports up to 55’ deep and building up the soil grade by an additional 10 feet in some places.

These re-engineering feats would then be followed by weeks or months of settling. This is not the kind of site preparation anticipated in the original 2012 Environmental Impact Statement for the STAMP site. Additionally, the report shows that the stormwater permit STREAM applied for was based on faulty assumptions about stormwater management on the site.

This information leads us to wonder what CEO Mark Masse of the GDEDC meant when he said the site was “shovel ready.” Does the term “sink hole” mean anything to anyone? Who remembers what happened when GCEDC used inappropriate construction methods during its botched first attempt to build a STAMP wastewater pipeline… in exactly the same kind of soils? That effort ended in a frac-out of 500-700 gallons of hydraulic drilling fluid spilled directly into wetlands of the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and, yes, sinkholes.

Dear readers, ask yourselves why the GDEDC would not have made this information easily and openly available to the public within the timeframe of open comment on this proposal. Ask yourselves why the GDEDC would only have posted the information on their website, under a less-than-clear title, in the middle of a 480-page document labeled as “supplemental information”.

Finally, ponder for yourselves the incredible amount of environmental damage and degradation such construction would bring to the Town of Alabama, all of the residents, the watershed, the wetlands, and the Wildlife Refuge. How can anyone think this is a good idea? It’s not!

Signed,

Barbara Price, Warsaw

Leslie DeLooze, LeRoy

Jenn Durham, Alabama

Sharon Larmon, Alabama

Cheryl Cordes, Alabama

Mark Cordes, Alabama

Sarah Kohl, Alexander

Angela Carlson, Batavia

Gina Schelemanow, Batavia

Diane Boeheim, Batavia

Beverly Hoy, Batavia

Irene C Hickey, Batavia

RaeAnn Engler, Batavia

Liz Thompson, Batavia

Charlotte Nelson, Lancaster

Elizabeth Harris, LeRoy

Mary Eisenhard, Pavilion

Joan Gray, Pavilion

Sarah Covell, Perry

Mary Marks, Stafford

Becky Lewis, York