By Don Hughes, CNNY Group Conservation Chair
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 complex of computer chip plant - called “fabs” - at said park. Micron’s new facility would be the largest yet of its eleven manufacturing facilities, and the largest private investment ever made in New York state history. The impetus for building this and other semi-conductor fabs in U.S. is the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) Act. which provides $52 billion in grants and loans to expand domestic semiconductor production.
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 semi-conductor companies. 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 1000 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.
The semi-conductor industry relies heavily on a class of compounds known as perfluorinated alkyl 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 (pptr) for two types of PFAS. To put this in perspective, 2000 gallons of a liquid mixed into all of Lake Ontario gives you 4.0 pptr.
Micron’s facility will consume vast amounts of electricity: 2 Gigawatts, equivalent to the entire output of the two nearby nuclear power plants, Nine Mile 1 and 2. Micron has secured an agreement with NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, to get a substantial amount of hydropower from Niagara Falls and the St. Lawrence power dams. The remaining power will be supplied through purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).
Micron has 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...” They aim to be net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. They have made significant progress at their existing facilities. Can they do the same here?
Two types of environmental review are underway. As of December 2023, an Environmental Impact Statement is being prepared by Micron’s consultants under New York state’s SEQRA 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 federal CHIPS Act funding is being used. The CNNY Sierra Club Group has teamed up with several other environmental and labor organizations to submit comments on the SEQRA scoping document and will be commenting on the NEPA process. You can send comments for the NEPA document (USACE number LRB–2000–02198; be sure to include this!) to celrb-icron.public.comments@usace.army.mil. We expect both Environmental Impact Statements to be put out for public comment this coming summer.