NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WKBW) — North Tonawanda residents are concerned over the Digihost Plant in the Sherwood Avenue neighborhood.
Deborah Gondek is a North Tonawanda resident and chair of the NT Climate Task Force.
She is one of many neighbors who isn’t too happy with the plant being in the area. One major concern is the noise.
The large acoustic wall only does so much.
Another concern is the emissions.
“Others live a lot closer, my concern has to do with the increased emissions that are coming from the plant," said Gondek.
Gondek said the plant releases hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year.
“So what does that equate to? About enough power for 165,000 homes for a year,” she said. “And to put that in perspective we got about 32,000 residents in North Tonawanda so that’s one of the things that frustrates me.”
Mayor Austin Tylec said he understands the concerns of his taxpayers.
That's why he wrote a proposal to the common council to create a third-party organization called “Noise Pollution Clearinghouse.”
“They’re experts in acoustic training, updating codes, and recommending equipment,” he said.
To hire this company the mayor would need to get a budget transfer through the common council.
“The common council or at least the common council president blocked my proposal to hire this third-party agency,” Tylec said. “In addition, I spoke with Digihost and they were kind enough to say that they will reimburse the city up to $30,000. So it won’t cost taxpayers to provide this service.”
7 News reporter Yoselin Person spoke with Council President Frank DiBernardo.
“They want to go and basically hire this company out of Vermont and do this work. I told Austin to stop, we’re not against this,” he expressed. “It’s not on the agenda tomorrow to approve any transferring. In our agenda tomorrow is a resolution saying we support it and it’ll take a couple of weeks to go in the direction with the right company.”
