BY JEFF CHUDZINSKI
North Country This Week

MASSENA — Residents of Massena will once again have an opportunity to voice support or opposition for crypto mining operations in the town at a public hearing scheduled for Nov. 16 at 5:30 p.m. that could lead to an extension of an expiring moratorium.

Town officials have opted to extend the moratorium on multiple occasions, saying the regulations surrounding such operations require further research.

“As you remember, that has been, you might say, extended a few times. They are still working on regulations. So the hearing next week will be to extend it again or not and for how long,” Town Supervisor Sue Bellor said during a special meeting last week.

Crypto operations have been a mixed bag in recent years with many residents opposing such operations in town. Many argue the facilities are an environmental hazard while offering few jobs to the local economy.

Some have been labeled as an eye sore, including one operation that utilizes sea box containers for the actual structure. Code enforcement, town officials and Town Attorney Eric Gustafson have taken steps in recent years to attempt to put an end to the use of such containers with crypto mining companies.

But not every company operates the same way. One mining operation that has received praise from officials and residents alike is North Country Colocation Services, an organization that employs over 100 people.

The 435-megawatt-capable facility is home to hundreds of processors for computational server farms in multiple industries, not just crypto, including AI research and Block-chain technology.

NCCS is housed at the old Alcoa East plant, utilizing a former industrial site that many say would have long sat vacant.

CEO David Fogel previously told North Country This Week that NCCS has plans to continue to hire additional staff in the North Country, making the company one of the largest private employers in town.

Though other operations have attempted to set up in Massena in recent months, the ongoing moratorium has halted any such implementation.

During a meeting held this spring to extend the moratorium again, Gustafson told board members he heard rumors of a potential state moratorium that was in the works. At the time, town officials had yet to finalize any local laws and regulations.

The moratorium was extended again during that meeting, with dozens of residents in attendance. Planning board members, residents and other local officials spoke against the operations, leading to the extension of the moratorium.

Village officials swiftly followed suit, implementing their own moratorium for six months. The resolutions passed by the village stated officials felt “such a moratorium will protect the public interest and welfare of the residents of the village until such comprehensive regulations are adopted.”

Village officials went a step further to define crypto mining after one potential operator attempted to circumvent the town board and planning board on a technicality of language used.

That company, Block Scheme LLC, is owned by Russian national Sergey Karpenko.

Karpenko had previously received approval for a much smaller operation prior to the moratorium, however he soon changed his tune and wanted to expand the operation significantly after the moratorium went into effect.

Officials quickly shot down the plan, saying Karpenko was describing a change that required site plan approval, a process that can’t begin until the moratorium is over.

Over the course of multiple public hearings Karpenko argued his operation was not a crypto mining operation but rather a data mining operation. Planning board members quickly countered the argument, saying crypto and data are essentially the same thing.

As a result, village officials defined crypto mining as “the commercial process by which cryptocurrency transactions are verified and added to the public ledger, known as the block chain, and also the means through which new units of cryptocurrencies are released, through the use of server farms employing data processing equipment.”

Server farms are also defined as “three or more interconnected computers housed together in a single facility whose primary function is to perform cryptocurrency mining or associated data processing.”