upstate – never sleep

Just over two years ago, Micron Technology announced it would build, with substantial help from taxpayers, the nation’s largest chipmaking complex in the northern suburbs of Syracuse.

Construction was scheduled to start in June 2024. That was pushed back to early 2025. And now, groundbreaking won’t start until at least November 2025, nearly a year and half behind the original schedule.

At the same time, all of the other major chipmakers that have won big awards from the federal CHIPS Act are putting up factories and installing equipment across the country. Even Micron is pouring 30,000 tons of concrete a week at a chip plant it’s building — in Idaho.

In the town of Clay, however, the 1,400-acre site where Micron proposes to build four massive factories remains heavily forested and brimming with wetlands. Micron’s only presence there are several plywood signs.

The main reason for the holdup? Micron hasn‘t finished the massive environmental impact report required by the state and federal governments to move the project forward.

Continue reading “Here’s why Micron is running behind in New York, and what it means to historic project”

The Onondaga Nation has regained 1,000 acres (405 hectares) of its ancestral land in upstate New York, a tiny portion of the land members say was unjustly taken by the state beginning in the 18th century.

The heavily forested land is south of Syracuse and near the Onondaga’s federally recognized territory. The land, which includes headwaters of Onondaga Creek, was transferred by Honeywell International on Friday under a federal Superfund settlement related to the contamination of the environment, according to the Onondaga Nation.

The land is part of an expanse of 2.5 million acres (1 million hectares) in central New York the Onondagas say was taken over decades by New York beginning in 1788 through deceitful maneuvers that violated treaties and federal law.

Sid Hill, the Tadodaho, or chief, of the Onondaga Nation, said Monday they were grateful to federal and state officials for working with them to return “the first 1,000 acres of the 2.5 million acres of treaty-guaranteed land taken from us over the centuries.”

“This is a small but important step for us, and for the Indigenous land back movement across the United States,” Hill said in a prepared statement.

Rebuffed in U.S. courts, the Onondagas are now pursuing their claim before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which is part of the Organization of American States.

The nation’s case involves a roughly 40-mile-wide (65-kilometer-wide) strip of land running down the center of upstate New York from Canada to Pennsylvania. The Onondagas hope the case spurs negotiations that could lead to the return of some land.

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Here’s why Micron is running behind in New York, and what it means to historic project

Ancestral land returned to Onondaga Nation in upstate New York