ForeverChemicals NY

Dear Governor Hochul,

I write to update an earlier letter I sent your office on April 5, 2026, asking that enforceable PFAS limits be incorporated into the Oak Orchard SPDES permit before that permit was signed. On April 10, 2026, NYSDEC signed the permit (NY0030317) without enforceable numeric PFAS discharge limits. The permit becomes effective May 1, 2026.

I am writing now because the most consequential decision in this project has not yet been made. The County Legislature has not yet authorized the bond for the $1.4–$2.6 billion Industrial Treatment Plant. That bond authorization is the last governmental act standing between the public and a discharge permit with no enforceable PFAS protections. I am asking your office to use the levers it has — through DEC, through Empire State Development, and through your direct relationship with County leadership — to ensure the Legislature’s vote happens with full information.

What the signed permit actually does.

NYSDEC issued the Oak Orchard SPDES permit (NY0030317) on April 10, 2026, with the following PFAS provisions, all of which are documented in the Department’s own Responsiveness Summary published the same day:

• Two compounds (PFOA and PFOS) received numeric values — not enforceable discharge limits, but 10 ng/L “action levels.” An action level triggers an investigation when exceeded. It does not constitute a violation. The permit’s own fact sheet acknowledges that the existing municipal effluent already exceeds the 10 ng/L action level for PFOS (16 ng/L measured) before any industrial discharge from Micron has begun.
• The other 38 PFAS compounds on DEC’s own regulated list received monitoring only. No numeric limits, no enforcement triggers, no permit consequences for any concentration detected. The justification is the same boilerplate sentence repeated 38 times in the fact sheet: that monitoring will support the establishment of future standards.
• Eight PFAS compounds are already detected in the existing municipal effluent at concentrations between 2.3 and 23 ng/L. Five exceed the action level applied to PFOA and PFOS. None received a numeric limit. Per the permit’s own pollutant summary table.
• The permit’s engineering basis for Micron’s industrial wastewater is what Micron “stated during workshops.” No independent characterization, no compound list, no analytical data — per the Conceptual Design Engineering Report prepared by Brown and Caldwell, the County’s own engineer.
• NYSDEC simultaneously found the project inconsistent with New York’s own Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act and justified issuance under the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2021. This is, to our knowledge, the first time a New York environmental permit has been justified on national-security grounds, overriding state climate law.

The connection to your own PFAS commitments remains direct.

Your 2026 State of the State directed DEC to require PFAS treatment at landfill leachate sources statewide. PFAS in landfill leachate is, on a per-gallon basis, a substantially smaller load than what Micron will discharge to a public drinking water watershed at 30.8 million gallons per day. The standard you set for landfills must apply with greater force to a $100 billion semiconductor facility discharging upstream of a drinking water intake serving 500,000 Central New Yorkers and millions more downstream via the St. Lawrence River.

Three asks — each within your office’s authority.

To the County Legislature, through your office’s direct engagement with County Executive Ryan McMahon and Chairwoman Nicole Watts:

1. Defer authorization of the Industrial Treatment Plant bond until Onondaga County’s Industrial Wastewater Discharge Permit to Micron — the IWDP the County itself will write under the EPA-approved Industrial Pretreatment Program — contains enforceable numeric PFAS discharge limits, including the Total Oxidizable Precursor (TOP) Assay in addition to EPA Method 1633A.

To Empire State Development, through Commissioner Hope Knight:

2. Condition any disbursement of the $5.5 billion Green CHIPS Excelsior tax credit package on definition of “sustainable wastewater management” in Micron’s Sustainability Plan to include enforceable PFAS limits in the IWDP, full PFAS chemical disclosure to the County and DEC without NDA restrictions, and PFAS destruction technology rather than filtration.

To NYSDEC, through Commissioner Amanda Lefton:

3. Initiate the TOGS 1.3.14 track-down program for Micron immediately as a significant upstream industrial PFAS source under the December 2025 Division of Water guidance signed by Director Carol Lamb-LaFay. Add semiconductor manufacturing (SIC code 3674) to the TOGS 1.3.13 priority facilities list. The peer-reviewed evidence of PFAS in fab wastewater — including SIA’s own 2025 industry survey finding 840 ng/L average PFAS in fab effluent — meets every threshold for priority designation that exists in the Department’s own framework.

The window that remains.

The SPDES permit window has closed. The bond authorization window has not. Micron is contractually obligated to reimburse the County for construction of the Industrial Treatment Plant, but the County bonds upfront, holds the SPDES permit, and absorbs the liability when PFAS appears in Lake Ontario, in the fish, in the drinking water of the half million residents OCWA serves. The County Legislature has the authority and the fiduciary obligation to require, before authorizing the bond, that Micron accept enforceable limits on the chemicals the public will eventually pay to clean up.

Your office holds three of the four levers that can make this happen. Brown and Caldwell — the County’s own engineer and the same firm working on Micron’s Boise facility — estimates the Industrial Treatment Plant at $1.4 to $2.6 billion. The County Executive uses $1 billion. The gap between those two numbers is what gets cut to make the politics work, and what gets cut is PFAS treatment. If the bond is authorized at the lower number without protections in the IWDP, the protections will not exist later.

1,000+ Central New Yorkers, downstream Canadian neighbors on the St. Lawrence, the Onondaga Nation, the Sierra Club CNY, the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, and CHIPS Communities United are all asking the same thing: that the Industrial Wastewater Discharge Permit, written by Onondaga County, contain the enforceable PFAS limits the SPDES permit does not.

This requires no new authority. It requires the Department’s existing TOGS guidance to be applied. It requires Empire State Development’s existing Sustainability Plan approval process to be exercised. It requires your office’s engagement with the County Legislature before the bond vote happens.

I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with your staff at any time.