Right now, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation faces an existential threat from the Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP), a proposed industrial “mega site” underwritten by New York State funding and facilitated by state permitting and policy. Meanwhile, the state is also funneling money into speculative nuclear energy plans that threaten our shared environment.

This tool will help you send a letter to New York’s Energy Research and Development Authority to support the Tonawanda Seneca and Tuscarora Nations in demanding key protections for their lands, lifeways, and sovereignty. It calls for the state to take immediate measures to avoid the threat of STAMP to the Tonawanda Nation and uplifts the Tuscarora Nation's call for a State Energy Plan that aligns with Haudenosaunee priorities to take care of Mother Earth and give thanks for all that she provides to all humans on a daily basis.

The sample letter you’ll submit to the state can be found here:

Sample Letter

I am writing to uplift the Tonawanda Seneca and Tuscarora Nations' calls for environmental justice in the New York State Energy Plan. Below you will find the key changes to the plan that members of these Nations request.

Tonawanda Seneca Nation

The Tonawanda Seneca Nation faces an existential threat from the Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP), a proposed industrial “mega site” underwritten by NY state funding and facilitated by NY state permitting and policy. The Nation calls upon NY state to take immediate measures to avert this threat by ending the flow of direct and indirect subsidies to STAMP and by ensuring the robust and culturally appropriate implementation of the CLCPA and EJ Siting Law. 

Despite sustained and forceful opposition from the Nation and its allies, developer Genesee County Economic Development Center (GCEDC) has begun construction of STAMP on 1,260 acres of wetlands, forests, and farmland. STAMP lies adjacent to the Nation’s federally-recognized Reservation Territory, nestled among protected areas including the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge and the Tonawanda Wildlife Management Area. Tonawanda Senecas and other people from across the Haudenosaunee Confederacy continue to hunt, fish and gather in the Nation’s “Big Woods,” an ecologically rich primary forest. Industrialization at STAMP threatens Haudenosaunee cultural practices as well as the Nation’s treaty-protected rights to clean water and to the free use and enjoyment of its homelands. 

Despite more than 15 years of effort and more than $410 million dollars in NYS subsidies, there are only two fully confirmed tenants at STAMP: Edwards Vacuum, a dry pump vacuum manufacturer and Plug Power, a green-hydrogen manufacturer which suspended construction in 2023 and may never resume. In March 2025, GCEDC approved an additional $472 million in taxpayer subsidies for a 900,000 square-foot data center. The Nation and the Sierra Club are currently litigating to challenge GCEDC’s environmental review process of the data center. STAMP violates New York’s CLCPA, which should safeguard against building polluting facilities near communities that already experience disproportionate pollution burdens. While minimal infrastructure has been built, massive environmental harms have already occurred. STAMP constitutes a profound environmental injustice for Nation citizens. 

Tonawanda Seneca Nation Demands the Following Changes to the Draft NYS State Energy Plan: 

• The plan must explicitly reject all false solutions such as ‘green’ hydrogen, and must proactively prohibit the allocation of NYS public funds to further the development of these false solutions; 
• The plan must explicitly reject the expansion of nuclear energy, which has historically and in the present caused disproportionate harm to Haudenosaune and other Indigenous Nations; 
• The plan must ensure robust and culturally appropriate implementation of the CLCPA and EJ siting law to prevent Indigenous Nations from being disproportionately impacted by new energy projects; 
• The plan must prohibit future allocations of low cost Niagara River hydropower to STAMP tenants; 
• The plan must ensure that current requirements of the CLCPA are fully upheld in future review of funding allocations and permitting to industrial development facilities at STAMP; 
• Regulations pertinent to the ORES must engage proactively and meaningfully with Indigenous Nations by providing the earliest possible notice on any relevant action and multiple opportunities for Nations to take action to mitigate adverse impacts to their territories and/or cultural resources; 
• The Plan must explicitly reject any buildout of the AI industry and for-profit data center infrastructure that undermines the state's capacity to meet its stated climate goals under the CLCPA 
• The Plan must prohibit the allocation of subsidized renewable energy to the AI industry and for-profit data centers.

Tuscarora Nation

The NY Energy Plan has some goals that don’t completely align with Haudenosaunee priorities and perspectives taught to them by their ancestors. Their ancestors passed down through oral tradition that they must take care of Mother Earth and give thanks for all that she provides to all humans on a daily basis. The Tuscarora Nation would like to see New York State harness the energy development from Mother Earth that does not include the burning of fossil fuels or utilizing hazardous nuclear facilities that cause more long-term harm than good.  

The Tuscarora Nation agrees that the world, and New York, needs to get greenhouse gases under control immediately and within a decade to have any real impact on our future, and a nuclear energy response is not the answer to this problem, based on the long lead time, 15 to 20 years, for a new nuclear plant to be built and online. Also, if New York State’s Energy Plan is an outlook to 2040, which is a reach beyond the dire responses needed to our current climate shift issues in the world, nuclear should still not be a viable solution for New York. 

Currently there are no permanent storage facilities in New York (or the world) for the radioactive byproducts of nuclear energy, only facilities that act as temporary solutions. Combining this with the hazardous transportation of their spent fuel rods, the afterlife of nuclear power is too much of a risk for a “healthy environment” which the Plan states as one of the priorities in the proposed 2040 Energy Plan. It will be future generations of the Haudeonsaunee people that will carry the burden of the impacts from the hazardous nuclear waste left onsite of the developed nuclear facilities in their homelands. The Tuscarora Nation does not want their grandchildren to carry this burden.

In addition, Tuscarora supports the Tonawanda Seneca Nation’s stance against the industrial “mega site” Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (STAMP) currently being constructed adjacent to their Indigenous lands, impeding Tonawanda Seneca's “enjoyment” of their lands as outlined in the 1794 Canandaigua Treaty. NY State’s proposed Energy plan falsely cites ‘green’ hydrogen as a solution to the State’s energy needs and the STAMP project is a catalyst to provide this to the State.

Last, although the Planning Board and 2040 Energy Plan cites five goals, and none of them reference our environment or human health as a top five, the Tuscarora Nation knows that you need to prioritize need to prioritize humans and the natural world just as much as ‘economy’ and ‘the needs of business and jobs’. Also, the Nation agrees everyone has to do their part to help reduce greenhouse gases, but the real need is that NYSDEC and USEPA should not be allowing industry to pollute without consequences and taking more than what they actually need. Meaning, industry should not be considered when developing a plan that involves the continued existence of people’s lives to live in peace and harmony with Mother Earth. We all need clean air, clean water and clean lands to continue to exist as humans.   

Sincerely,

[Your Name]