As industrial developers look to bring semiconductors and artificial intelligence data centers near Indigenous communities across the state, two nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy are organizing in resistance.  The Onondaga and Tonawanda Seneca nations in Central and Western New York face different efforts against potential environmental harm to ancestral territories and sacred sites. Those struggles against reindustrialization may require the Haudenosaunee nations to take the fight to the courts — action they rarely resort to.  On the ancestral lands of the Onondaga Nation, Micron Technology — a leader in memory chip manufacturing that has promised to bring thousands of jobs to CNY — recently took its first tangible steps toward building its facility in Clay.  The Nation is bracing for the development’s environmental effects on natural life throughout the region as environmental reviews on Micron’s impact remain opaque.  In Western New York, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation is preparing for the next chapter in what has become a prolonged fight to stop the development of a new artificial intelligence data center at an industrial site that has haunted the Nation for two decades. For representatives of both nations and their allies, these struggles call to mind past chapters in their shared history of resisting the defiling of sacred land, they said. “We are defending ourselves as a nation, as a people that are fairly recognized, have treaties with the U.S.,” said Tonawanda Seneca Nation Administrator Christine Abrams. “We’re fighting for our way of life.” The Tonawanda Seneca Nation has since 2005 resisted industrial development at the site in the Town of Alabama in Genesee County known as the Science Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park, or STAMP. The 1,250-acre sprawling site is located near the Big Woods, a natural area of cultural and practical significance for the Nation.  Developers and government officials supporting both industrial efforts downplay the impact the projects will have on surrounding environments, local waterways, and energy rates, legal representatives of the Onondaga Nation and members of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation said.  After centuries of bad-faith dealings and industrial harm on ancestral lands, the Haudenosaunee remain wary of lofty assurances from non-Native companies and governments. Joe Heath, the lead counsel for the Onondaga Nation, said that the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency are presenting the arrival of Micron as a “great service to the community.” “Well, the service to the community would be to get those jobs in a responsible, environmentally conscious way,” Heath said. “Whenever there’s a choice, Indigenous concerns and Indigenous environmental stewardship is pushed aside.” For the Tonawanda Seneca, who are resisting the imminent expansion of STAMP, defending the species that call the Big Woods home is paramount. Preserving the old-growth forest is important to all six nations within the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The Tonawanda Seneca oppose development at STAMP altogether, and Stream’s proposed data center — bringing noise, light, and water consumption — is particularly onerous. “We are here, ready to fight whatever we need to for as long as we need to, to ensure that our environment remains clean and our customs and usage remains intact,” said Grandell “Bird” Logan, a spokesperson for the Nation. As members of the confederacy prepare to ensure their ancestral land is protected, they worry that the allure of job creation will prove irresistible for environmental regulators and elected leaders who want to spur economic development. Despite failing to build up STAMP, Genesee County’s industrial development agency proposed a deal to give $801 million in tax breaks to Stream to create 125 permanent jobs at the data center. Micron, which has not yet ramped up hiring, is also slated to receive hefty subsidies to create thousands of jobs.   STAMP has idled for almost two decades, hung up in bureaucratic gridlock and resistance from the Tonawanda Senecas who have appealed to the state with environmental concerns. Though the state initially appeared to initially listen, the prospect of job creation soon took precedence, Heath said.  “Tonawanda and the Haudenosaunee have been talking to the state about why STAMP is just completely unacceptable and irresponsible for many years,” Heath said. ‘The dominant paradigm’ STAMP has seen several proposals for development come and go over the past two decades. The most recent focus of Genesee County is a data center proposed by Stream U.S. Data centers are particularly objectionable to the Tonawanda Seneca due to the toll they take on the environment, Logan said. Increased water usage, wastewater pollution, high electricity demand and ratepayer costs have all been levied as concerns by communities and environmentalists across the country who oppose data centers despite companies’ promises of economic development.  The Tonawanda Senecas ultimately filed a joint lawsuit with environmental organizations Sierra Club and Earthjustice to oppose Stream’s original plans for a 900,000 square foot facility. Stream in November scrapped that proposal — but the company returned with an even bigger proposal, over twice the size of the original data center plan.  Last week, Stream announced a plan to purchase property at STAMP from Plug Power, a former tenant which tried and failed to construct a clean hydrogen facility. Plug Power’s stalled project — which received hundreds of millions in subsidies but produced no hydrogen power or permanent jobs — embodied Genesee County’s struggles to make good on the promise of STAMP development. The Tonawanda Seneca are preparing to meet that new proposal with the same resistance as the first. The Tonawanda Seneca Nation Council of Chiefs made clear in a November statement commemorating the Treaty of Canandaigua that they are prepared to pursue litigation to oppose the new data center proposal. “George Washington made a commitment to my ancestors that the Treaty would protect our territory forever, and told us that the courts would be open to us if we needed to enforce the treaty’s terms,” Chief Roger Hill said in the Nation’s statement. “Unfortunately, that is what we have had to do to protect our homelands, and we will do it again if need be.” The Tonawanda Seneca say data centers emit significant light and sound, that could disturb the local ecosystem of the Big Woods and scare off critical native species. In Central New York, the Onondagas are preparing their efforts of resistance to projects surrounded by uncertainty on their plans for environmental protection. Clearcutting in preparation for Micron has already felled hundreds of trees, a process that will continue to destroy the habitats of multiple endangered bat species. Parts of Micron’s proposal, which has been touted as a generational economic boon to the region’s residents, have not been filed with state environmental regulators for review or are still in the review process.  That has prompted a lawsuit from environmental advocates as local labor groups advance their own lawsuit hoping to compel Micron to issue legally binding commitments on environmental protections and local job growth. Heath said that prior broken promises of conservation efforts from industrial developers worry the Nation. Heath recounted the fate of the Seneca Nation, a separate sovereign nation from the Seneca Tonawanda Nation, who still live the fallout from nuclear development half a century ago as an example of the harms of the past haunting the Nations’ present.  “Micron is just as problematic — as though we never learned anything from Onondaga Lake — where the mantra of ‘jobs’ seems to be sacred, and environmental issues are being brushed aside,” Heath said.  Heath said that Micron and the county’s plan to mitigate potential PFAS pollution is inadequate. PFAS are also known as forever chemicals. It simultaneously disparages Haudenosaunee history and poses harm to present Indigenous communities, he said.  “We’re going to dump all of that into the Seneca River, an incredibly important historic location in waterway for the Onondaga and Haudenosaunee, because it’s part of the Three River System where the Grand Council used to meet,” Heath said. Micron and the county have said an expanded Oak Orchard Wastewater Treatment Plant will mitigate those problems.   Heath also compared the Tonawanda Seneca’s fight against STAMP’s expansion to the Onondagas’ own effort to push back against the growth of a gravel mining operation in Tully. The continued expansion of the Cranesville Block gravel mine, Heath said, jeopardizes the Onondagas’ environmental remediation goals for the 1,000 acres of land it reclaimed in 2024. Heath said the decision to industrialize “goes back to the fundamental cultural differences between the Haudenosaunee and the dominant paradigm: extraction, commodification, exploitation.” ‘The time of the land grab…’ As both nations continue to sharpen their plans to resist the titans of new American industry, they may have to resort to the courts for help. The Haudenosaunee nations prefer settling conflicts through diplomacy and dialogue, Heath said.  In his 40 years representing the Onondagas, he believes he has only been authorized to advance one lawsuit in an effort to reclaim stolen land.  “These are small communities without large financial resources,” Heath noted. The Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s fight against STAMP reminds Abrams and Logan of their ancestors’ efforts two centuries ago to defend their land from developers.  Logan said that the continued efforts to industrialize the land surrounding the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s territory build on the injustice of centuries of land theft. At one point those injustices erased the Nation’s reservation altogether.  The Tonawanda Senecas’ history is marred by spurious land development. Through the federal 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, the Tonawanda Seneca retain a claim to thousands of acres of land spanning much of Western New York and beyond. Subsequent bad-faith treaties with New York state have eaten away at their territory.  The Nation at one point lost its reservation altogether through invalid treaties with a land development company, and resorted to lawsuits to win back its land. Victories in state court and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowed the Nation to purchase back a portion of its land. Abrams wants anyone opposing development at STAMP to resist with the same tenacity as those who fought back against the Ogden Land Company nearly two centuries ago. Doing so, Abrams said, is essential to preserve the world for the next seven generations of humanity. “They saved this land for us,” Abrams said. “We were their future generation, and now we have to do the same for our future generations.” With developers continuing to pitch Genesee County on projects at STAMP, in spite of environmental concerns raised to the state by Indigenous people, Logan likened today to what he labeled “the time of the land grab” and westward expansion. The victories against Stream and past developers should signal to officials with the Genesee County Economic Development Corporation that building out STAMP is not a good idea, Logan said.  “But I guess we’ll see if they really do read these signs and take these messages,” he said.  Abrams hopes that sustained resistance can compel Stream to locate its data center elsewhere. Local resistance to data centers and other AI-related projects appears to be growing around the country, sometimes resulting in companies delaying or cancelling proposed development.  Now that Stream is advancing plans for a larger data center, Abrams said it is even more important for the coalition opposing that project to flex its might to Stream and the state. She hopes to see more in-person demonstrations to supplement petitions, letters to elected officials, and potential lawsuits.  Abrams and the Tonawanda Seneca Nation see commonality in their struggle and in the concerns of local residents dreading industrial encroachment near their homes. If more community members join efforts to resist Stream, that mass display of sustained opposition could stave off the data center while avoiding another legal battle, she noted. “It’s not just affecting us, but we’re fighting this for the whole area,” Abrams said. “That’s going to impact everything surrounding us, especially on our lands, our wildlife, our plant life, those that we use for our ceremonies and customs and traditions.” The post What Haudenosaunee resistance to reindustrialization means for ancestral lands in the AI age appeared first on Central Current. ...read more read less