Did Hochul Save Cayuga Lake from TeraWulf?

“In September 2025, TeraWulf proposed building a 300-400MW high performance computing (HPC) data center on Cayuga Lake. Local opposition to the project is strong.

Governor Hochul’s moratorium on all proposed data centers in NYS is likely to slow any site review process by the Town of Lansing. On July 22, the Ithaca Journal reported that ‘Still standing on the lakeshore property is the coal-fired power plant that closed in 2019, which TeraWulf wants to restart to power its project.’

This is a shocking revelation. TeraWulf’s pitch to Lansing explicitly centered on deactivating the coal plant and repurposing the site for a data center using renewable energy. 

TeraWulf’s Cayuga Lake data center project has not made a complete site plan application yet, nor has TeraWulf secured any corporate clients for the data center project. On the second quarter earnings call, TeraWulf CEO Paul Prager claimed that both TeraWulf data center projects in New York were more valuable as a result of Governor Hochul’s executive order moratorium, a desperate spin to save face for the Cayuga Lake data center project. 

In our view, any bid to restart the old power plant has no legs. The two steam boilers from 1955 are now too corroded to be reused. Most or all of the motors in the plant were cut up and sold for scrap. There is no power plant to be ‘restarted.’

TeraWulf’s threat to restart the power plant may be pure saber-rattling aimed at the Town Board. By stoking anxiety about adding a power plant, TeraWulf may hope the Town Board and local residents will eventually breathe a collective sigh of relief, ‘Phew, we only got a data center!’ However, if TeraWulf proceeds with a formal application for a power plant and data center combination project on Cayuga Lake, they may be hoping for review for both components to come under the jurisdiction of the NYS Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment in Albany, possibly circumventing the local authority of the Town of Lansing and the political power of watershed residents, leaving those stakeholders most impacted by the project with little or no say in whether a data center or data center-generating plant combination gets approved. 

The governor and TeraWulf may need to be reminded of residents’ winning No- Nukes on Cayuga Lake campaign in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

So, it’s too soon for any sigh of relief; we must stay vigilant. FLX Strong, CLEAN and their supporters and partners will! Donations to our legal and campaign fund can be made at nodatacenterflx.com.” - John V. Dennis, Ithaca NY

Human Rights Violations Toward People of Israel

“I support peace and coexistence between all peoples living in the Holyland. Sadly the Palestinian leadership, despite signing the Oslo ‘Peace’ Accords in 1993, have always continued to teach hatred of and advocate for the destruction of Israel.

The most recent Gaza war resulted from thousands of Gazans invading neighboring Israeli communities to rape, stab, maim and slaughter innocent civilians. 1200 Israeli residents were slaughtered and 251 were kidnapped, many raped and tortured for hundreds of days until they or their dead remains were repatriated to Israel. This not only happened to Jews. It was also perpetrated against neighboring Bedouin Arab communities and other non-Jewish residents of Israel. The HAMAS charter aims to kill every Jew.

Among the murdered hostages were 9 month old Kfir Bibas and 86 year old Shlomo Mansour who survived the 1941 Farhood massacre in Baghdad.

Israel’s response to this attack has sadly resulted in much destruction and death in Gaza. The loss of civilian life resulted from Hamas using Palestinians as shields and from Hamas building tunnels filled with weapons beneath schools and hospitals.

Genocide is the aim to kill an entire people. This is HAMAS’s aim, not that of Israel.

Thank you Representative Josh Riley for seeking out the truth and standing up against the attempted genocide against Israel.” - Marcia Zax, Ithaca NY

RE: Smut: An Ithaca Obscenity Trial 

“We can always count on Carol to shine a light on intriguing slices of local history. I look forward to her newest book. Congratulations, Carol!” - Lynn Thommen, Ithaca.com 

RE: Letters to the Editor: Questions for Josh Riley

“Thank you, Ruth Yarrow -- unless Josh Riley actively owns these terrible mistakes, he's lost my vote.” - Hardy Griffin, Ithaca.com 

Ithaca Common Council Skirts Local Law 

“Developers of a new Planned Unit Development (PUD) presented their plans at Common Council last week. The plan would build 5 apartment buildings, each 4 stories high, creating a total of 75 apartments. Location is on a wooded cliffside on lower West Hill, with a driveway onto Elm Street. Adjacent properties are LACS school and apartments formerly called Chestnut Apartments. Many members of the neighborhood spoke about problems with the site location. However, Common Council moved it forward in the planning process by considering the application complete. 

In the process of considering the application complete Council disregarded City of Ithaca ordinance Article 4-325-12-F, which charges Council with ensuring the PUD application provides the following public benefits: 

1) Further health and welfare of the community. 

2) Be in accordance with the Comprehensive Plan. 

3) Create one long-term significant community benefit. 

1.) Much of Council members’ discussion questioned the plan for increased traffic on lower Elm Street, implying they were concerned about safety. However, those concerns were not framed as compliance ( or non compliance) with the ordinance. 

2.) Regarding the second requirement, Council discussion never mentioned the Comprehensive Plan, nor whether the proposed PUD was in accordance with it. Goals about housing are in the Council’s Executive Work Plan but that doesn’t carry the same legal weight as a Comprehensive Plan. 

3.) As far as creating one long-term community benefit, developers mentioned infrastructure to enhance West Hill's water pressure. No Council member referred to better water pressure as a long-term benefit. Rather, the sole benefit cited by Council was their primary goal for West Hill: more housing. 

The second paragraph of the PUD ordinance provides the Purpose and Intent of the local law. It states, in part, that the benefits to the community for a PUD should include: reduced traffic demand, greater quality and quantity of public/private open space, community recreation amenities, needed housing types, innovative designs, protection/preservation of natural resources. 

Council stated more needed housing types was clearly the perceived benefit of the PUD application. However, the PUD proposal is in opposition to much of the Purpose and Intent because it would destroy natural resources, increase traffic demand, decrease safety for pedestrians and bikers, and reduce public space used by LACS students and staff as well as the residential neighborhood. 

If the PUD application fails to meet the basic requirements of City Code, why should the application go through the long labyrinth of public hearing and site plan review. 

Common Council should do their due diligence to ensure the application complies with local law. If it doesn't, instruct the developers to come back with a plan that does.” - Tom Stern and Sara Hess, Ithaca NY