In a special session Monday, the Onondaga County Legislature approved plans for the biggest ever infrastructure project in county history. The project would allow the nearly 45-year-old Oak Orchard wastewater treatment plant in the Town of Clay to process 15 million gallons of sewage a day, up from a limit of 10 million gallons currently.
Part of that is needed for the Micron project, while the other will increase capacity, allowing for more business and residential growth in Onondaga County's northern suburbs.
Democrat Mo Brown argued that lawmakers don’t have enough information to vote on such a large county infrastructure project.
"We can't get this wrong," Brown said. "This project is way too important. And if the analysis comes back and the information is not what we projected, we're going to be in a whole lot of world of hurt. And I don't want to be there."
For legislator Cody Kelly, who represents Clay, it’s not a controversial vote.
"We're not talking about industrial wastewater. We're not talking about forever chemicals," said Kelly. "We're talking about sinks and toilets."
Some Democrats, like Dan Romeo, felt they didn’t have enough information from the County Executive's office to put their votes behind a multi million dollar project.
"I personally don't have enough of the quantitative data associated with this project in an understanding of the details of this project to be able to vote for it," said Romeo.
There were also political overtones hanging over the vote. Democrats will take over the majority in the legislature this week for the first time in almost 50 years. Democrat Floor leader Nodesia Hernandez tried, but failed, to get lawmakers to put off a vote until after January.
"Rushing to approve 549 million in debt without clear financial documentation isn't fiscally responsible," said Hernandez.
Republican floor leader Brian May defended the timing of the vote, noting the plans have been under consideration for a while. And at this point in a massive project like this, he said all the answers will come in time.
"Questions that some believe have not fully been answered, I contend these are the best answers we can get right now," said May. "This is a decision to upgrade a municipal sewer project, not whether or not to put toxins in our drinking water."
Republicans also wanted to emphasize this municipal water project shouldn’t be confused with an industrial wastewater plant Micron is expected to pay for as part of it’s $100 billion plan to build computer chip plants in the Town of Clay.
The project will undoubtably mean an increase in sewer rates down the line for county residents, but lawmakers don't yet know what that increase will be.
