By Don Hughes, Conservation Chair, CNNY Group
In early 2020, just before the Covid pandemic hit, newly elected Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon was trying to woo high-tech industries to move into a vacant business park in the northern suburbs of Syracuse. Two-and-a-half years later he hit the jackpot. In October 2022, Micron Technology announced plans to spend up to $100 billion to build a massive complex of computer chip plants at said park. Micron’s new facility— a “fab” in industry lingo — would be the largest yet of its eleven manufacturing facilities spread across 17 countries. Much of the impetus for this and other semiconductor fabrication facilities in the U.S. is the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act which provides $52 billion in grants and loans to rebuild a domestic semiconductor industry. Even so, it would be the largest private investment ever made in New York state history.
While the new facility promises 9000 new direct jobs, thousands more related jobs, and many economic benefits, it comes with numerous risks to both workers and the environment. So much so that the Sierra Club, together with Communication Workers of America and 50 other organizations, wrote a letter to the CEOs of all of the major semiconductor beneficiaries of the CHIPS Act. They wrote: “Our concerns stem from the semiconductor industry's well-documented history, starting in Silicon Valley and expanding globally, of polluting the environment, harming workers and their offspring as well as community residents, busting unions, avoiding taxes, and burdening host communities with significant problems.” They asked the industry to set a higher standard.
The complete facility, a set of four “fabs,” would occupy over 500 acres. They plan to fill in 226 acres of federally regulated wetlands, and consume nearly 50 million gallons of water per day, more than is used by the entire city of Syracuse. This would be drawn from Lake Ontario via a new pipeline installed next to the existing pipeline. Wastewater would be pre-treated at the fab complex and then further treated at the county’s wastewater plant. A conventional sewage treatment plant would have difficulty in treating this industrial wastewater.
The semiconductor industry relies heavily on a class of compounds known as per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Nicknamed “forever chemicals” because they do not break down in the environment, they bioaccumulate in animals and are highly toxic. Drinking water standards have been set at 4 parts-per-trillion (ppt) for two types of PFAS. To put this in perspective, 500 gallons of a liquid mixed into all of Lake Ontario gives you 1.0 ppt.
The proposed Micron facility would consume vast amounts of electricity: 16 gigawatt-hours per year, equivalent to the entire output of the two nearby nuclear power plants Ninemile 1 and 2. The company has expressed a desire to be 100% renewable, using only solar, wind, and “low-impact” hydropower. Micron has secured an agreement with NYSERDA to get a substantial amount of power from Niagara Falls and the St Lawrence power dams. The remaining power will be supplied through purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).
Micron’s promotional materials set laudatory goals for sustainability, by “mitigating our impact on the environment, bolstering our team members and the communities in which they live, respecting human rights, driving transparency and accountability in our supply chain, and developing innovative products that support a sustainable future.” They aim to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. They have made significant progress at their existing facilities. The question remains: Can they do the same here in New York?
Two types of environmental review are under way. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is being prepared by Micron’s consultants under New York state’s SEQR law. The second review is being conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers as required by the federal EIS legislation (“NEPA”). NEPA comes into play because federal wetlands are to be filled in and the federal CHIPS Act funding is being used. The Central-Northern NY Group has teamed up with several other environmental and labor organizations to submit comments on the SEQRA scoping document and will be working on the NEPA scoping document. You can send comments for the NEPA document (USACE number LRB–2000–02198; be sure to include this!) to celrb-micron.public.comments@usace.army.mil. We expect both Environmental Impact Statements to be put out for public comment this coming summer. Stay tuned.