(WENY) –  Business owners and environmental activists demanded action Friday morning in response to a move by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation earlier this week.

RELATED: DEC Decision on Greenidge Generation Permit Renewals Delayed Again 
The move entails delaying the decision to renew the Title V and Title IV permits for Greenidge Generation for another three months. Seneca Lake Guardian Vice President, Yvonne Taylor, alleges the power plant and Bitcoin mining facility are turning Seneca Lake from a tourist attraction to uninhabitable. 

“It's a direct assault on the Finger Lakes and our $3 billion, 60,000-job local agritourist economy; all for an operation only employing 48 people to make virtual money and a few people very rich.” Taylor said, “Every day the DEC and Governor Hochul allow Greenidge to operate is another day that Greenidge is allowed to damage the finger Lakes, New York State, and for that matter, the planet.”

Assemblywoman Dr. Anna Kelles of Tompkins County is leading the charge on the legislative level with a bill that would enact a two-year moratorium on companies like Greenidge that mine cryptocurrency.

“What we are asking for is a pause; a moratorium on this type of activity because we are not seeing action from the Governor,” Kelles said. “I will be pushing my bill. It will be moving through the assembly. It has also been moved through the senate, but we need the Governor to be our partner.”

For now, Kelles' bill is in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. Meanwhile, she and the others against the project continue urging Governor Hochul to take action before the new DEC deadline. Updates on her bill can be followed online.

Greenidge Generation issued a statement on its website Thursday, in response to the DEC's decision to again delay its decision on the permit renewals.

“Extensions are common for renewal applications deemed complete and under final review, and we were happy to agree to the department’s request for additional time. Our operations will continue uninterrupted during this period, in full compliance with our existing permit.

We will continue to create great new jobs and career opportunities in a future-focused sector where New York should lead, and in a region where opportunity has long been too limited for too many.

Our facility has already reduced its combined upstream and onsite GHG emissions by roughly 70% when compared to the 1990 baseline set in the CLCPA. We have requested zero increase in allowable emissions in our pending permit application. Even running at full permitted capacity, our GHG emissions amount to 0.2% of the statewide target for 2030. This permit renewal, which expires in 2026, poses no impediment to New York meeting its statewide GHG
emissions reduction targets in 2030 or beyond.

That said, we have reiterated to the department what we have often said publicly: we are willing to do far more than we have already done to further reduce GHG emissions and help
the State achieve its statewide CLCPA goals.

Notwithstanding the noise from our few remaining opponents, this is a standard air permit renewal governing permitted emissions levels, not a cryptocurrency permit. Their efforts to mislead the public – and to cause our team members and IBEW partners to lose their jobs without any basis in law or fact – have been shameful.

The State of New York should lead, embracing the cryptocurrency industry and all the opportunity we’ve shown it can create for New Yorkers while complying with the nation’s most aggressive environmental standards and laws addressing climate change.

We look forward to finalizing a strong, renewed Title V Permit to allow Greenidge to continue its environmental and economic stewardship in New York.”