A group of Finger Lakes residents say they’re fed up and taking action against a local cryptomining company as it continues to operate a gas-fired power plant, despite being denied an air permit more than three years ago.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation rejected Greenidge Generation’s permit to operate a natural gas plant in 2022. Three years and thousands of Bitcoins later , Greenidge is doing a brisk business, emitting around a half-million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, according to the DEC.

The fight in the Finger Lakes has been going on for years and was a forerunner to battles now emerging across the state and nation as server farms crop up from New York to California, often sapping the local electric grid or firing up retired gas-burning

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