OONA members oppose data center at STAMP, citing ecological threat to Oak Orchard, huge tax incentives to company

Editor:

We, the members of the Oak Orchard Neighborhood Association, are writing to voice our opposition to Project Double Reed, a hyperscale data center at the STAMP industrial site in Alabama, NY.

We are a group of neighbors living near Point Breeze, a beautiful, peaceful area where the Oak Orchard River flows into Lake Ontario. As a center for tourism, recreational boating, and world class fishing, our neighborhood is an important contributor to the economic health of Orleans County, generating around $30 million in annual economic activity.

The mission of our group focuses on local issues – efforts to improve and protect our community. Therefore, although a large number of strong arguments against the data center can be and have been made, we will focus only on two with the largest local implications: 1) the data center will increase the risk to the health of the river, a river that is already ecologically impaired, and 2) the data center will likely impose a financial burden on our members.

The river is a fragile ecosystem and is already considered by the NYSDEC to be impaired with phosphorus, a material that is key for the formation of the large, smelly, unsightly algae blooms. The current plan is for STAMP to pump treated sewage (which inevitably contains phosphorus) into a tributary of Oak Orchard Creek at Oakfield, where it will ultimately make its way to our community.

High phosphorus levels can lead to explosive algae blooms, and possibly to the ecological “death” of the river from oxygen depletion. Why is the data center important to this process? The data center is key to completing an electrical substation that will bring hundreds of megawatts of power to STAMP, power that is needed for a full buildout, with many companies and potentially a huge increase in wastewater (high-end estimates of perhaps millions of gallons per day) that is destined for our neighborhood.

What about the economic issues? The data center will consume unfathomably large amounts of electricity. The expectation is that the center will apply for and be granted low cost “hydropower” rates. As many reputable publications have noted, the inevitable result of this infrastructure buildout will be higher rates for ordinary ratepayers and businesses.

A second economic factor involves the astronomically high tax abatements offered to the data center, around $470 million, or about $3.9 million per job created! Less tax paid by the data center will result in an economic burden – either increased taxes or reduced services – for ordinary citizens and businesses. Please note that the corporation benefiting from the low electric rates and the tax abatements – a Fortune 50 company that has a soft commitment with STAMP – is one of the richest on the planet.

We stress that the Oak Orchard Neighborhood Association is not anti-growth or anti-jobs. We enthusiastically support local businesses and sensible, smart economic growth initiatives. Our area needs more good jobs. In our view the proposed data center at STAMP is neither sensible nor smart. We do not support its construction.

The Members of the Oak Orchard Neighborhood Association

Point Breeze

(Submitted by Dave Giacherio, Recording Secretary of OONA)