If there is anyone who can protect Central Ohio’s water supply from Intel, it is the grassroots environmental group the Columbus Community Bill of Rights (CCBOR).

For years they have warned that toxic radioactive fracking wastewater has been leaking out of 13 storage chambers located above the region’s watershed. And even if the proof is not definitive, it is likely an unknown amount of this fracking “brine” has moved down through the area’s five major rivers.

The oil and gas industry is not to be trusted, but on the horizon is perhaps the Columbus CCBOR’s greatest challenge. Intel’s massive New Albany campus which will be sucking 1.5 million gallons or more of water per day out of the Hoover Reservoir – a major source of water for the City of Columbus – beginning in 2027. Apparently this is needed to make their advanced microchips, as the tech giant demands.

Intel says 80 to 90 percent of the water it takes will be returned to Columbus. First it is treated and then reused by Intel in multiple ways. Eventually the wastewater is treated a second time, by the Ohio EPA and City of Columbus’s Division of Sewerage and Drainage. It will also be tested for chemicals by the City of Columbus’s Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP).

After the treatments and testing, Intel’s wastewater is finally discharged into Columbus’s sanitary sewer system, and the CCBOR says much of it will eventually make its way to the Scioto River.

But there is some confusion over the wastewater and what exactly is in it, at least as far as the public is concerned. Because Intel has made what is in their wastewater proprietary, and CCBOR’s president Bill Lyons earlier this year asked Columbus’s Division of Water if they will know exactly what chemicals are in the wastewater and at what levels. The semiconductor industry uses more than 1,000 chemicals, and many are carcinogens which cause reproductive harm. Many are also neurotoxins and “forever chemicals.”  

“We had a meeting with the Division of Water and we asked them, if the chemicals in the wastewater are proprietary, how would they know what chemicals to test for and what the levels of these chemicals are, and they said that Intel would have to let them know what the chemicals are so they can test for them, but they would have to keep it secret,” said Lyons to the Free Press. “Wastewater which will be released into the Scioto and eventually reach the Ohio River.”

Lyons continued, “This may be difficult [testing the wastewater] because there’s many chemicals to test for and there might be many tests required. Maybe they’ll just test for certain chemicals that they think are more dangerous and have an upper level that is allowed by the EPA.”

The Free Press asked the Division of Sewerage and Drainage about Intel’s proprietary wastewater and whether they are certain Intel will offer full disclosure of what chemicals are in the wastewater and at what levels and whether the levels are safe enough to be returned to the region’s watershed.

“Intel’s wastewater discharges to the Columbus publicly owned treatment works [sewer system] and will be monitored by the Columbus Industrial Pretreatment Program [IPP]. Federal categorical limits that apply to the Intel facility will be enforced by the IPP, as well as established local limits that are required for all industrial users in the service area. Additionally, the program may enforce additional limits in Intel’s industrial user discharge permit as deemed appropriate by the Columbus Division of Sewerage and Drainage,” stated Rob Priestas, an administrator with this Division, to the Free Press in an email.

Priestas adds both Columbus’s treatment plants (at Jackson Pike and Southerly) have won numerous awards from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies for their compliance records.

But Lyons says Priestas doesn’t satisfactorily answer the question.

“[The Division of Water] doesn’t address how they will know all the chemicals to test for,” said Lyons. “In other words, what will they do about the proprietary chemicals?”

Intel chemicals in our water, as some would argue, is a disturbing tradeoff to make Central Ohio the “Silicon Heartland.” But it is not just chemicals to worry about – it’s the amount of water itself, because Intel isn’t the only aqua-desperate tech giant moving into the Licking County farmlands east of Columbus. Microsoft is building a six-building data center in Hebron, and they will need 252 gallons per minute per building. Just this month Meta announced it will build a new data center in New Albany.

Activists from Licking County say Intel in 2021, with help from private and public interests, began drilling in these farmlands – and doing so in a covert way – trying to find the many aquifers deep underneath.

Bryn Bird resides in Granville and is part of a growing number of local citizens aligning with the CHIPS Communities United advocacy group seeking to bring responsible implementation of the CHIPS Act. She co-owns her family farm and is a Granville Township Trustee.

“Because we are rich with water, this is a big reason why the area is highly attractive to a lot of these tech businesses moving in. Our area is non-irrigated agriculture, which people in Ohio don’t always realize how blessed this is. That means when we plant corn the only thing that waters it is the rain coming down. We don’t have to irrigate our land as most any other state does. We have these lush non-irrigated farm fields that are highly productive and under it sits these very filled aquifers,” said Bird recently to Carolyn Harding on her 91.9 WGRN show GrassRoot Ohio.

Intel in 2021 tried at first to drill these test wells on private farmland in secret, or it sure seemed that way, claim Licking County activists. Yet as more and more heavy equipment was witnessed in the area, rumors began to spread.

According to the citizen’s action group Clean Air and Water for Alexandria and St. Albans township, which are neighbors to New Albany, the drilling of these test wells was at first “unbeknownst” to the public.

“There are numerous documents showing where test wells have been drawn without anyone knowing about it. Along Raccoon Creek,” said Elaine Robertson, a founding member of the Clean Air and Water for Alexandria and St. Albans township. “Water is a huge deal. A fight between towns and a utility. EPA permits. The New Albany Company is behind much of it.”

Indeed, those who fish or kayak at Hoover Reservoir told the Free Press this summer’s drought lowered the reservoir’s water level by an estimated ten feet. True, Hoover Reservoir is believed to hold an estimated 20 billion gallons, but Intel may expand to eight fab plants instead of just two, and other tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta and Google may also need to tap in. Just this month Meta announced it will build a new data center in New Albany.

Division of Water spokesperson Laura Mohr says Hoover Reservoir levels right now are not at record lows. More than a decade ago it was down 17 feet.

“All of our reservoirs are usually down in the fall following the higher summer consumption with lawn watering, filling pools etc., a normal seasonal pattern, and they usually fill back up with snow and rain by the next summer,” stated Mohr in an email to the Free Press. 

She added, “we don’t just rely on nature.”  

“We have back up water supplies for both Hoover Reservoir and Big Walnut Creek which supply our Hap Cremean Water Plant, and O’Shaughnessy and Griggs Reservoirs on the Scioto River which supply our Dublin Road Water Plant, and we are using them now, as planned long ago to tap when needed,” she stated. “In the case of Hoover, we maintain rights to pull water from Alum Creek in Delaware County to pipe it over to Hoover, which we began doing in September.”  

The Columbus metro area by 2050, as many know stated Mohr, will likely reach over 3 million people.

“Our engineers follow those kinds of projections and have planned ahead for them for many decades,” she stated. “Fortunately, another great planning aspect of our water system is the fact that our system is interconnected, meaning one plant service area can help back feed water to the other. This will help with the growth planned in the New Albany area and in other areas.”

Lyons of the CCBOR recently purchased the book “Boiling Frogs: Intel vs. The Village.” It is a cautionary tale about the rural village of Corrales, New Mexico, where Intel in 1992 built its two-billion-dollar flagship plant for America. What residents of Corrales found out was that this so-called “clean industry” was an anything but clean.

“[Les] Wexner, [Troy] Balderson, Gov. DeWine, and Jobs Ohio, can get all excited about jobs and Columbus becoming a tech hub, but the truth is, it’s all about the money,” said Lyons.