Photo by Jess Cherofsky. Image description: Two giant gray hydrogen storage tanks are framed by the diamond of a chain link fence. Forest is to the left of the globes, large machinery to the right, and barren gravel between the globes and the fence.
STAMP 101
AT FULL BUILDOUT, THE STAMP SITE WOULD INCLUDE:
- WNY STAMP = the Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park
- The project developer is the Genesee County Economic Development Corporation (GCEDC)
- A 1263-acre mega industrial site located in Alabama, NY (Genesee County), immediately adjacent to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation
- There are only two fully confirmed tenants at the site:
- One is energy company Plug Power, which halted construction in Jan 2024 on a $290-million "green" hydrogen production facility
- The other is Edwards Vacuum, which would produce dry pump vacuums for use in the semiconductor industry
- To date, the site has received $410 million in subsidies from NYS taxpayers. These monies include $13 million from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s scandal-ridden Buffalo Billion program.
- The site plan includes 775 acres of impervious surface cover (ISC) in the form of roads, parking lots, roofs, and other infrastructure
- At full buildout, GCEDC claims STAMP will employ 9,000 people. However, the two confirmed tenants would employ only a few hundred people. Moreover, because of their inability to attract advanced manufacturing tenants, the developer is pivoting to data centers - which notoriously use a lot of water and energy resources but employ very few people.
- The developer lacks permits necessary to build critical infrastructure, including a pipeline for clean water, an electrical substation, a wastewater treatment facility, or a wastewater pipeline. And yet, the site is already under construction.
- Construction of the wastewater pipeline was halted in September 2023 following multiple fracouts and spills of 500-700 gallons of hydraulic drilling fluid into wetlands on the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge. Following months of advocacy by allies and a lawsuit by the the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service revoked a critical permit allowing construction through the Refuge. The developer has not yet finalized an alternate route or plan for construction of the pipeline.
- The Tonawanda Seneca Nation has filed numerous official letters expressing their opposition to the project and demanding full and meaningful consultation processes as required by state and federal law.
AT FULL BUILDOUT, THE STAMP SITE WOULD INCLUDE:
- A water pipeline for > 6 million gallons daily inflowing from the Niagara River.
- A wastewater pipeline discharging up to 6 million gallons daily of effluent into a tributary of Oak Orchard Creek, which flows through the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge into Lake Ontario.
- More than 600 diesel truck and 800 car trips per day.
- Power lines and other infrastructure including 775 acres of roads, parking lots, and roofs.