Five Minutes, and a Standing Ovation

Todd Fitzsimmons

Founder, ForeverChemicals CNY · 40 years designing hazardous-liquid systems

PFAS is so toxic to human health that the EPA determined there is no safe level for PFAS. The federal maximum contaminant level for drinking water was set at 4 parts per trillion — not because it is safe, but because that is a level that can be measured and enforced. One part per trillion is one second in 32,000 years. Or a single drop of water in four Olympic-size swimming pools.

And PFAS is like glitter. It never goes away. It just accumulates — day after day, year after year. In fact, it's accumulating in our blood. Every person in this room likely has PFAS in their blood right now. PFAS has been linked to cancer, high blood pressure, thyroid disease, kidney cancer, and childhood development.

And it has also been found to be a real pain in the ass — if you're in the semiconductor manufacturing business. Or maybe if you're the one responsible for protecting human health, and your boss is in the economic development business.

The semiconductor industry depends on PFAS in its manufacturing processes, and has for decades — millions of tons of them. It can't exist without them. You can't make missiles, or cell phones, or computers, without semiconductor chips.

Back when the EPA was doing its job, and noticed a lot of people downstream from DuPont and 3M were dying, they started regulating them. The market found a way around those regulations, and those fine folks at DuPont introduced a new PFAS called GenX — unregulated, and, according to them, also safe. About the time the bell in the cash register quit ringing, GenX was discovered to be just as toxic, and so the EPA regulated it too. Thank god we had the EPA protecting us.

The semiconductor industry didn't pack up shop and go home. They just started using other kinds of PFAS that weren't regulated. And this cycle has been repeating ever since. Right now there are forty types of PFAS that are regulated — and the semiconductor industry is using hundreds of others that aren't. All of them are toxic. Their business model is to stay one molecule ahead of the regulations. It's not their responsibility to protect human health — only to follow the law, and the lawmakers.

In fact, Micron has promised to limit its discharge to the limits in the SPDES permit. That sounds great — until you realize there are no limits for PFAS in that permit.

The semiconductor industry spent 19 million dollars on lobbying during the last presidential race. Last year, the EPA was in the process of introducing new regulations that would finally address industrial discharge — when the new administration, on day one, cancelled them. The CHIPS Act had included millions of dollars for a program called PFAS Reduction and Innovation in Semiconductor Manufacturing — to find a way to balance the needs of the chip fabs against human health. That funding was eliminated by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was quoted as saying, at the groundbreaking just up the road: "This groundbreaking only got scheduled at the end of December — because the Trump administration cleared out all of the environmental and other things that tend to get in the way."

Now the EPA is trying to roll back the PFAS regulations we already have for drinking water. Protecting human health is not as important as economic development.

Thank god, then, that we live in a state that spends 3.6 billion dollars a year on a Department of Environmental Conservation that protects us from would-be polluters. Right? After forty years of watching this agency in action, I can tell you, from my own personal experience, that is not even close to what they do. I would need hours to tell you my stories about an agency that is extremely good at appearing to protect human health — while it is actually protecting the interests of politicians and donors.

I've watched them direct polluters to put their pollution into the air instead of the water — because you can't measure it. I watched a local man get promoted after I showed his boss proof that he'd had a free hunting camp built by the very contractors he was favoring on cleanup projects. He was put in charge of Major Oil Storage Facilities.

That is why I got involved in this project. The other reason is that last year I watched my mother die a very painful, slow death from cancer — a beautiful, strong woman who spent the last month of her life begging people to get her a gun so she could end it.

My daughters have her brains, and her beautiful eyes. And since I only have five minutes — I'd like you to meet them.

Kristina Fitzsimmons

The permit, and what it does not do

Good evening, members of the Onondaga County Legislature. My name is Kristina Fitzsimmons. I'm a recruiter in engineering and power generation, and a resident of the Syracuse area. I'm here to speak about the serious PFAS concerns with the Micron semiconductor project in Clay and the risks its wastewater poses to our local waterways and drinking water supply.

I want to talk about the plant being built at Oak Orchard to treat Micron's wastewater — and where that water goes.

At full buildout, it will discharge up to 33 and a half million gallons a day — 12 billion gallons a year — of PFAS-laden water into the Oneida River. That flows to Lake Ontario, right past the drinking water intake for 500,000 of us, and on down the St. Lawrence, where 3 million more people drink — through the Thousand Islands, where my family has lived for 200 years, and which native people revered as the Garden of the Great Spirit for a thousand years before that.

My great-grandfather, Lowell Fitzsimmons — who I named my son after — chaired the Hudson and Black River Regulating Boards. He spent his life balancing human health against economic development. It is hard, honest work — exactly the work the DEC is supposed to do.

Under its charter, and on a budget of 3.6 billion dollars a year, the DEC is required — I am quoting the law — "to conserve, improve and protect its natural resources and environment, and to prevent, abate and control water, land and air pollution, in order to enhance the health, safety and welfare of the people of the state." But the DEC is run by political appointees, under real pressure to expedite permits so development can move — and this is the largest economic development project in the country's history.

Here is what that pressure produced. Last month, in your own meeting, Regional Director Dereth Glance was asked directly: does Micron's permit contain enforceable PFAS limits? She said yes. But Director Glance is not a chemist or an environmental scientist, and she was wrong. In a follow-up letter in your handout, she admitted it does not. What the permit has is something they call an "enforceable action level."

That is smoke and mirrors. An action level is not a limit. This one covers just two of the hundreds of PFAS compounds Micron uses, and sets enforceable limits for none of them. Exceed it, and all it triggers is more testing and a minimization program — and once that starts, even the testing can go away. The only testing actually required is four samples a year. Four jars — on a pipe carrying 12 billion gallons, with a method that misses over 90% of what is actually in the water.

Look at Seneca Meadows, the largest landfill in the state. It had leachate near 13,000 parts per trillion of PFAS — over 3,000 times the drinking water limit. It had an action level, and no enforceable limit. So today they truck 40 million gallons of it a year to a Buffalo sewage plant, Bird Island, never designed to remove PFAS — and it discharges straight into the Niagara River and Lake Ontario. The discharge never stopped. It just moved. Action levels do not stop toxic discharges. Enforceable limits do — and this same permit proves the DEC knows how: for mercury, they wrote a hard, enforceable limit. For PFAS, they chose not to. I won't guess why. And I won't guess why they also refused to require the testing methods that would actually show what is being discharged.

The DEC says it is not required to write enforceable PFAS limits, and for a Class B waterway like ours, that is technically true — the only standard on the books was written to keep fish alive, not to protect the people who drink the water. But "not required" is not "not allowed." Their own charter requires them to use every reasonable means to keep pollution out of our water. They could set a real limit tomorrow. They are choosing an action level instead.

That is why we — and more than 2,000 petition signers — are asking this Legislature to require enforceable PFAS limits in this permit, before the plant is built. The draft resolution is in your evidence package, with the names of every signer asking you to do the same.

I urge you to take strong action to protect our community's water resources and public health. Thank you for your time.

Riley Fitzsimmons

Age 16 · the precedents, and the ask

Good evening. My name is Riley Fitzsimmons. I'm a student in Manlius, and I've spent more than 2,000 hours doing community service here in this county. I'm here for a simple reason. I don't want another kid to have to watch their grandmother die the way I watched mine — a slow, painful death from cancer.

My sister showed you what this permit does. I want to show you that it does not have to be this way — because other places, facing this same company and these same chemicals, made a different choice.

Start with Boise. Micron has run its plant there for decades. PFAS has turned up in the Boise River downstream — but because nobody ever set a limit, and nobody ever took a baseline sample first, the source is "disputed," and so nobody is responsible for anything. That is not a mystery. That is simply what happens when all you do is monitor. And it is the exact future this permit is building for us.

Now look at Virginia. Last year after discovering contamination of their drinking water they passed House Bill 2050 — the Occoquan Reservoir PFAS Reduction Program. A Democrat wrote it. A Republican governor signed it. It requires the semiconductor plants discharging into that reservoir — and Micron's own Manassas fab is one of them — to bring their PFAS down to the federal drinking water limit. And it has teeth: if they go over, the state has to tighten the permit. Same company. Same forever chemicals. Two million Virginians got an enforceable limit — because their leaders, in both parties, required it. The difference between Virginia and us is not the science. It is leadership.

And the technology to do even better already exists. It is called zero liquid discharge. Instead of treating wastewater and releasing it into a river, a chip fab plant recovers and reuses almost all of its water, and sends virtually nothing out. Semiconductor makers elsewhere are already moving toward it. Yes, it costs more. But it means the PFAS never reaches the Oneida River, never reaches Lake Ontario, never reaches the Thousand Islands and never reaches our tap. That is what real protection looks like — not four jars a year.

I want to say something directly to this committee, because I think what has been put on you is not fair.

Protecting our drinking water from these chemicals was supposed to be the job of the EPA and the DEC. That is what they are funded to do. But the first federal rule ever written to control PFAS from plants like this was withdrawn by the current administration. The EPA has also pushed its own deadlines out and moved to repeal others. And our own DEC just wrote "monitor," and walked away. When every agency above you steps back, the responsibility does not disappear. It lands right here, on this committee. That is not fair to you. But it is real. Tonight, you are the only ones standing between that pipe and the people downstream.

And here is the part that should give you hope: you still can stand there. The contract is not signed. The design is barely a third finished. The bond is not authorized. Everything my sister asked for can still go into this plant if you act before that window closes.

I am 16 years old. The people who will be drinking this water long after everyone in this room is gone are my generation, and one day our children. You have a chance tonight that Boise never got — to draw the line before the pipe is even built. It is my generation's future you are deciding here today.

I started by telling you about my grandmother. Let me end there too. I don't want my children, my grandchildren, or the millions of people downstream to ever have to do what I did — sit beside someone they love, and watch her die a slow, painful death from cancer. Tonight, you can help make sure they never have to.

Thank you.