LANSING, NY (607NewsNow) — On June 17th, a coalition of groups held a press conference before a Lansing Town Board meeting, emphasizing community opposition to TeraWulf’s proposed Cayuga Data campus project.

The press conference was held by FLX Strong, No Data Center FLX, CLEAN, Sustainable Fingerlakes, Ithaca DSA, PSL Upstate, and more.

“We want to keep people updated and informed on the latest details about TeraWulf’s project and when they will make an appearance at the Lansing Town Board meetings. Our group shares the facts that we get from what TeraWulf proposes and what they have submitted to the town. We’re not here to over exaggerate, but to disseminate what we know and let residents know how this project and similar ones will affect them if they are permitted,” said No Data Center FLX Contributor Allison.

The petition, Reject the Development of an AI Data Center on Cayuga Lake, received over 19,700 signatures, 17,000 of which were from New York State residents, and was presented to the Lansing Town Board. The petition’s webpage states “TeraWulf, a bitcoin mining company-turned AI data center company, is proposing a 300 or 400 Megawatt AI data center on the shores of Cayuga Lake. This development will bring adverse environmental, quality of life, and economic impacts to much of all life as we know it throughout the Cayuga Lake watershed.“

Started in September of 2025, No Data Center FLX began as a small aggregation of people concerned about TeraWulf’s proposed project. It wasn’t long until the group teamed up with FLX Strong, another group opposing the construction of data centers.

“More than anything, we are a group of residents who are concerned with noise pollution, rising utility costs, and degradation to the natural environment and the neighboring wildlife,” FLX Strong President and Ludlowville resident Ken Wolkin said at the press conference.

Since the proposition of the Cayuga Data campus project, a Tompkins County Supreme Court Judge has affirmed the right to challenge the Lansing Zoning Board of Appeals’ (ZBA) classification of a proposed data center as a permissible land use near the lakeshore and adjacent wildlife preserve following an the Article 78 is arguing the classification of the AI data center as ‘general processing’ filed by FLX Strong and Cayuga Lake Environmental Action Now (CLEAN) against the Lansing ZBA, TeraWulf, and its subsidiaries this past January.

“With the Responsible Data Center Development Act now headed to Governor Kathy Hochul’s desk, our calls to action are focused on putting pressure on the Governor to not veto or gut the bill. Data centers are, across the board, not wanted by members of the community where they’re proposed, not just in the Finger Lakes, but all across the country. It’s not just that we don’t want them in our backyard, we don’t want or need AI data centers anywhere. These proposed projects only benefit the 1%, the CEOs of companies like TeraWulf, the politicians who work out deals with them. They are not wanted or needed in our communities,” said Allison.

On Thursday, June 25th, No Data Center FLX and FLX Strong will come together to host a public presentation on “data centers, their harms, the proposed data center in Lansing, and what you can do,” according to the No Data Center FLX Facebook page.

“Some Lansing locals and TeraWulf representatives have repeatedly tried to make the development a Lansing-only issue, even referring to folks not residing in Lansing as ‘outsiders.’ Aside from noise pollution traveling well over bodies of water like Cayuga Lake and potentially disrupting people on the west side of the lake, when large loads like 300 MW get added to the grid, the whole region will feel the impacts in the wholesale costs of electricity and potentially infrastructure upgrades being passed on to rate payers. TeraWulf has tried to ensure us at previous meetings that they would pay for the infrastructure upgrades their project would require, but most recently on April 27, admitted to not knowing how much the cost would be – so how can they say with full confidence that they would pay for all of the grid upgrades?” asks Allison.

Find the petition here, and more information about No Data Center FLX here.

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