Press relase
GENESEE COUNTY, NEW YORK – Today, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and the Sierra Club filed papers to dismiss litigation in New York State Supreme Court. The filing caps a major victory: the rescission of approvals issued by the Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) for the development of a massive data center at the WNY Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) in Alabama, NY.
The litigation had asked that the approvals be vacated based on GCEDC’s violations of both procedural and substantive requirements of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). GCEDC had issued decisions awarding subsidies of $472 million to Stream U.S. Data Centers for the development of a 900,000 square foot data center and concluded environmental review without project specifics or site plan review. In September, GCEDC’s Board of Directors voluntarily retracted project approvals.
“We filed suit to prevent GCEDC from pushing forward with approvals that the Nation and Sierra Club believed to be not only deeply flawed but also illegal. When GCEDC retracted their approvals, we achieved that goal,” said Chief Roger Hill. “We put GCEDC on notice that we won’t accept shoddy environmental reviews and that, going forward, they must follow the rules. GCEDC’s retraction of the approvals shows they got the message: the Nation and its many allies are watching. We will not allow them to push through projects that threaten the well-being of our territory and our shared environment.”
In court documents filed in late August, GCEDC stated their intent to consider an amended application from Stream U.S. Data Centers for an even larger data center project.
“We insist that the developers stop any further plans for a data center at STAMP. This environmentally rich and sensitive location is precious to all New Yorkers and especially to the people and wildlife who live in and visit it. It is the last place anyone should consider for an industrial location and for that reason the ill-conceived STAMP project has been failing. That failure is proven by the fact that GCEDC is courting the data center industry even though that industry is being fought off by communities all around the country,” said Diane Ciurczak, a member of the Executive Committee of the Sierra Club Niagara Group. “It produces few jobs despite consuming vast amounts of water and electricity that raise everyone’s utility rates and leads to shortages as well as being a noisy, polluting industry that threatens the peace and health of communities near them. We will continue to support the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and all the communities near STAMP to resist any plans for a data center at STAMP.”
To date, Stream U.S. Data Centers has not completed a purchase and sale agreement for the land, and GCEDC’s rescission of approvals means that any future application would be subject to a full review process. Pursuant to the filing, litigation would be dismissed without prejudice, which allows the petitioners to return to court and assert the same claims if necessary.
The result of this Article 78 litigation establishes a clear record of legal success by parties challenging industrial development at STAMP. In 2024, in response to litigation by the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service retracted a key right–of-way permit that would have allowed GCEDC to construct a STAMP wastewater pipeline through the nearby Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. The Nation filed suit after GCEDC’s construction efforts led to fracouts that spilled 500-700 gallons of hydraulic drilling fluid into Refuge wetlands.
Moreover, GCEDC’s voluntary retraction of approvals for the data center project is unprecedented in the long history of opposition to industrial development at STAMP. “We have asked GCEDC numerous times before to rescind SEQR resolutions because of flaws in their process. And every time until now, they have refused,” said Christine Abrams, Nation Administrator. “This rescission is the first one ever, and shows that we have the power to change GCEDC’s actions. We forced them to take this step. So it’s an important victory, even though it’s one battle in a long fight to defend our homelands and protect our future generations from harm.”
The Tonawanda Seneca Nation, a federally recognized Indigenous Nation and member nation of the Haudenosaunee, has raised concerns about the STAMP mega-industrial site since it was first proposed. STAMP poses an existential threat to the people and culture of the Nation, as well as to birds, fish, deer, water, and medicinal plants in the Nation’s Big Woods, which are located adjacent to the proposed data parcel site. The 1,263 acre STAMP site is planned for a rural, agricultural area and is surrounded by a network of public protected lands visited each year by thousands of nature enthusiasts drawn to the area by ecologically rich wetlands and forests that provide critical habitat for a diversity of birds, plants, and animals, including threatened and endangered species.
The petitioners’ victory confirms the moniker of STAMP as a ‘failing boondoggle’ and extends a lengthy track record of failures, environmental disasters, and scaling down of plans that collectively demonstrate the so-called ‘industrial mega-site’ is not viable as currently conceived. Despite nearly twenty years of effort and more than $410 million in taxpayer subsidies, GCEDC has struggled to attract viable advanced manufacturing tenants or to construct basic infrastructure at STAMP. Currently, Edwards Vacuum is the only tenant under construction. Plug Power paused construction on its green hydrogen manufacturing facility in 2023, leaving a gap in financing for the onsite electrical substation. The company, which recently lost millions of dollars in federal funding and fired its two top executives, has never turned a profit. Stream U.S. Data Centers had committed to covering $50 million of the substation financing gap as part of their data center proposal; the status of that financing remains unclear.