In North Tonawanda, residents are worried about pressure on the wastewater infrastructure. Near Seneca Lake, Taylor worries about the discharges of water from the Greenidge Generation data center into Seneca Lake and the nearby Keuka Lake.

The warm water, she says, could lead to increased amounts of cyanobacteria in Seneca Lake, creating harmful algal blooms in the water source of many in her community.

“My house has a pipe that goes down the hill into the lake, and that’s my water source,” said Taylor. “If there’s a harmful algal bloom in front of my water source, I can’t use my water at all. I can’t flush the toilet, I can’t shower, I can’t bathe.”

Taylor’s group, Seneca Lake Guardian, as well as Sierra Club and the Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes, sued Greenidge Generation in 2023, alleging that their discharges violated the Clean Water Act.

The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed, with the court ruling that the company’s application for a permit renewal was sufficient. That same year, under direction from the state Department of Conservation, Greenidge Generation also made some efforts to protect local marine wildlife from its water intake systems.

Though local residents have found some success in limiting the expansion of cryptocurrency mines in their towns by enacting local laws and moratoriums, it is these numerous larger lawsuits at the state level that can prevent existing mines from continuing their operations, even if they are not all successful.

In November 2024, in North Tonawanda, another lawsuit was successful with the New York Supreme Court ordering the Public Service Commission to re-review its approval of the sale of Fortistar power plant to Digi Power X while considering the state’s Climate Act. Digi Power X can continue to operate the power plant until the commission makes a new decision.

“You cannot allow the purchase of this power plant, which is going to result in astronomical increase in operations and pollution, to go through without a climate law analysis,” said DeRoche.

The Digi Power X air permit also expired in 2021. The Department of Environmental Conservation has yet to make a decision on its renewal application.

Digi Power X also plans to build a cryptomining facility on 20 acres in Hildebran, a small town in Burke County, North Carolina.  Town officials said at a public meeting that the company has yet to apply for permits.

Dozens of homes are near the proposed site. Bruce Berry, who lives about a mile away, told Hildebran Town Council members earlier this month that “anybody who lives close to one of these is not happy. What are we getting here? I’m looking for the benefits. It doesn’t create any jobs. People lose their serenity. If you want to go home and sit on your porch and listen to the birds, you can’t.”

Hildebran town officials said they can’t stop the company from building the facility because the state legislature has limited their zoning authority. However, a new bill would give local governments more leeway in some types of zoning decisions. It has yet to become law.

Both Digi Power X and Greenidge Generation did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Grid-Powered Mining

Other cryptocurrency mines in the state of New York are not powered by their own gas plants. Instead, like most businesses, they are hooked up to the electricity grid. This means that the greenhouse gas emissions linked to their operations, and their impacts on New York residents, are much harder to track—making lawsuits less likely.

“I think it’s harder to get reliable information about the ones that are on the grid and how much power they’re using—how much they’re spiking local electricity rates, and how much they’re impacting the grid and the community’s price of power,” said DeRoche.

But recently, a group of scientists at Harvard released a study that attempted to trace air pollution from the 34 largest bitcoin mines in the country, previously identified by the New York Times.

Using mapping technology, datasets from the New York Times and dispersion models, scientists were able to identify 635 power plants that were supplying electricity to these mines between August 2022 and July 2023.

“The potential amount of energy demand that these [34] power-hungry facilities are able to put together is as high as 33 percent more than the entire city of Los Angeles,” said Gianluca Guidi, a visiting scholar at Harvard who co-authored the study.

The study also tracked air pollution, specifically the pollutant PM2.5; exposure to it can lead to health impacts like childhood asthma and premature mortality. According to city data, long-term exposure to the pollutant even contributes to an estimated 1 in 25 deaths in New York City.

Although New York state only has four of these 34 large mines, multiple areas of New York City were identified as hotspots—counties where at least one community was experiencing a non-negligible amount of increased air pollution due to these bitcoin mines’ demand on the grid.

One hotspot was identified in Queens, near the Astoria Generating Station, a local gas plant. While observing the way weather and the atmospheric conditions impact the dispersion of air pollutants, study authors found that other hotspots were less clear-cut.

The hotspot in Staten Island, for example, was traced back to a New Jersey power plant, and the bitcoin mines that plant was serving were in upstate New York. This is because the electricity grid is not always divided perfectly along state lines.

“It can happen that you have a bitcoin mine or any large facility in a specific state drawing energy from a power plant that is now in another state,” said Guidi. “Then you have the dispersion of the pollution coming out of the power plants that goes and affects, potentially, a community in another state.”

Allies of the cryptocurrency industry have pushed back against the results of studies like these, arguing that cryptocurrency mining can stabilize the grid, meaning they can power down operations at peak demand times and make use of excess renewable energy.

According to a spokesperson for the New York Independent System Operator, the agency in charge of the state’s grid, this claim has not yet been tested. This notion of grid stabilization is based on “expected operation rather than actual participation in demand-side markets or other firm commitments to reduce consumption during peak demand conditions.”

Continued Deregulation

The cryptocurrency industry has received particular attention from President Trump, who spoke at the 2024 bitcoin conference during his campaign. Today, the Trump family also owns a crypto company, World Liberty Financial, and the president’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are heavily invested in a bitcoin mining company called American Bitcoin.

Since taking office, Trump has signed an executive order declaring the need for a new regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. He also placed cryptocurrency allies in the Securities and Exchange Commission, an agency that had previously been responsible for curbing corruption and fraud in the industry.

Given Trump’s support for increased fossil fuel extraction and expanded infrastructure for oil, gas and coal, the energy-intensive operations of bitcoin mines may continue to be powered by polluting power plants.

Meanwhile, the New York Independent Systems Operator is already planning for an increase in energy demand over the next 10 years due, in part, to cryptocurrency mines and data centers.

“As the demand on the grid grows at a rate greater than the build out of generation and transmission, deficiencies could arise within the ten-year planning horizon,” according to a 2024 report on grid reliability.

Today, the mines in North Tonawanda and Dresden are still operating—and so are their polluting power plants.

“The burden of proof still comes down to the people—we’re still in charge of proving that there isn’t a risk,” said Robinson, the Canisius professor. Agencies “assume that it’s safe until they see an accident or see devastation in terms of our power grid or wastewater or noise violations.”