County approves Micron project, giving the chipmaking complex its biggest boost yet

Syracuse, N.Y. — Onondaga County gave its final approval today for Micron Technology’s plans to build a massive chipmaking complex in the town of Clay, marking the project’s biggest step yet.

The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency today unanimously voted to give Micron the go-ahead to start building at the White Pine Commerce Park once the company obtains federal approval and necessary permits from other agencies.

“Now we have everything we need to get the process started,” said Pat Hogan, chairman of the agency board. “This is a generationally transformative project because it will take place over a couple of generations.”

Micron still plans to start clearing the site in December, said Robert Petrovich, executive director of the agency.

The project is expected to create 4,000 construction jobs, 9,000 jobs at the Micron plant and 9,500 jobs in businesses that supply Micron. The project would also generate $10 billion in gross domestic product and $3.3 billion in personal income in the region, OCIDA said.

Micron’s project “will complete the anticipated development of the WPCP, bringing its vision to reality and creating numerous benefits for state and local governments in the form of capstone developments that are regional destinations, increased tax revenue, and additional economic growth, as well as fulfilling a need for domestic semiconductor industry growth in the United States,” OCIDA said.

OCIDA acknowledges that while Micron’s huge project will have irreversible impacts on the environment, the proposed project “is the one that avoids or minimizes adverse environmental impacts to the maximum extent practicable,” OCIDA said in what’s known as a findings statement.

The 325-page findings statement, the final step in the two-year environmental review of the project, gives the agency’s reason for approving the plan and lays out what actions Micron must take to mitigate environmental impacts of the project.

Micron plans to build at least two chipmaking factories at the corner of Route 31 and Caughdenoy Road. Each factory and its related buildings sprawl across an area the size of the New York State Fairgrounds.

OCIDA also voted today to:

• Grant Micron $2 billion in sales and property tax breaks. That’s on top of the more than $22 billion in subsidies already granted to the project by the state and federal governments. Taxpayers will pay for about half of the estimated $51.5 billion cost to build two chip factories at Route 31 and Caughdenoy Road.
• Start the process of selling to Micron just over half of the 1,400 acres OCIDA has amassed at Route 31 and Caughdenoy Road. Micron will pay OCIDA $30 million to buy 820 acres of the proposed campus. OCIDA will reinvest that money into improvements on the site, according to a 2022 agreement.
• Award Micron $3.6 million in tax breaks to build a rail spur across Caughdenoy Road. Micron plans to bring millions of cubic yards of aggregate to the spur and bring it over Caughdenoy via a conveyor belt system 18 feet above the road.

Micron still needs approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce, which conducted the environmental review along with OCIDA. Petrovich said that’s scheduled to come in mid-December.

While construction and opening the first two factories have been delayed by two to three years, Micron is rushing to start cutting nearly 500 acres of forest as quickly as possible. The work will take four months, Micron estimates, and has to wrap up by March 31 because two species of bats protected by the Endangered Species Act return to the site every spring.

If Micron doesn’t get all the trees cut by March 31, it couldn’t start cutting again until November.

Micron still needs permission from a variety of government agencies to start clearing hundreds of acres of trees next month. Some of those permits are already being issued; DEC last week issued Micron’s preliminary air permit. That permit allows Micron to emit as much carbon dioxide as 200,000 cars annually.

Micron needs 10 permits from DEC alone, although most of them are related to wetlands and would likely be issued simultaneously. The company also needs a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill in about 200 acres of wetlands on the site.

OCIDA formally accepted the project’s final environmental impact statement Nov. 7, declaring essentially that the report answered and offered mitigation measures for all environmental concerns raised by the massive project.

That final environmental statement also revealed, in an appendix, that Micron has delayed construction and opening of the first fabs by two to three years. The first fab is not set to open until 2030, eight years after Micron first announced the project in October 2022. The second fab is now scheduled to open in 2033.

Micron has formally applied to build two fabs and says it could build two more by 2041.

More than 9,000 people could work at the four fabs by the time they reach full production in 2045, Micron says.

OCIDA will meet again Thursday for a public hearing on evicting a 91-year-old woman from her home on the Micron site and seizing rights of way on two parcels for an industrial wastewater line to serve Micron.

That hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday at Clay Town Hall, 4401 Route 31, Clay.