About a hundred people showed up Tuesday to voice their concerns to Micron and Army Corps of Engineers officials as Micron prepares to release its environmental impact statement.
People were passionate about their opinions at the Town of Clay meeting and didn’t hold back. The Army Corps of Engineers is the lead federal agency on the project for the planned Micron semiconductor facility in Clay. Micron plans to invest around $100 billion over 20 years.
The Corps says Micron’s plans will negatively impact the environment, adding that isn’t unusual for a project of this scope. That has prompted concerns from a number of people.
“I do support Micron; I am an engineer. But I am an avid fisherman and I do know how far something like a chemical spill could go," said Paul Fritzen.
It will be up to Micron officials to mitigate those environmental impacts. One of the ways they say they will do that is by recycling the water they take from Lake Ontario.
"It’s part of our water life cycle. So when you look at what we’re going to withdraw, we’re going to recycle a very high percentage of that," said Carson Henry, a senior official with Micron. "And then the amount we can’t recycle will be sent for treatment, and after that, it returns from the source that it came from. When you look at the water balance equation, the amount of water that is actually removed from Lake Ontario on a day-to-day basis is relatively small, and we’ll of course over the years try to improve our recycling rate as much as we can."
The public can continue to email comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at celrb-micron.public.comments@usace.army.mil until April 4.