TOWN OF CLAY, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) — Once Micron is fully operational, the campus is expected to use more water than the City of Syracuse: 48 million gallons per day.
Despite the fancy machinery the campus will house, most of that water will end up where everybody else’s does: in the brown pools of a wastewater treatment plant to be cleaned before being returned to nature.
The Oak Orchard Wastewater Treatment Plant is the one of six plants operated by the Onondaga County Department of Water Environment Protection that will serve Micron.
The campus is made up of a series of pools and tanks that take wastewater through a scientific process that will make it clean and clear again.
At that point, the water is returned to nature via the Oneida River.
But with the chance to expand with Micron, the plant has the chance to become more efficient and try to modernize.
Instead of returning the cleaned water into a river that’s actually less clean, WEP wants to pipeline it directly to Micron for reuse.
Micron will need more water than what’s flushed down the toilet. Much of its wastewater will come from the computer chip-making process.
That unique function will require WEP to install an industrial cleaning system on top of expanding its household wastewater treatments for toilet water.
WEP is working with Micron to figure out who pays for what.
