3.1 mill. gallons of wastewater, 30-acre main facility, numbers behind Chobani's Rome site
ROME, N.Y. — The City of Rome planning board has an informational update scheduled for its October 7 meeting regarding the proposed Chobani yogurt plant.
The planned topic comes with updated site plans and shines a light on some of the massive numbers behind making a plant of this size in Oneida County.
In April, it was announced that the Greek Yogurt giant planned to build a $1.2 billion production facility that would bring more than 1,000 jobs to the Griffiss Business and Technology Park in Rome.
The company currently employs 1,100 people in South Edmeston and Norwich in Chenango County. The CEO of Chobani at the time of the announcement said Rome was the perfect spot to continue the company’s story.
The proposed Rome site would have a capacity to process over 12 million pounds of milk a day and produce more than 1 billion pounds of yogurt and other dairy products a year.
Those numbers represent the massive production capabilities that a site this size could have. The construction and daily workflow of the plant would also have large numbers according to the site plans.
In those documents, Chobani said it would build on 146 acres, create 1,070 jobs over three shifts with the plant operating 24 hours a day. Three parking lots would be paved, for a total of 950 parking spots for cars. A stormwater management system would also have to be built on the site. Off-site improvements along Perimeter Rd. and Route 825 will be required.
Overall, the building square footage on the site would be 1.8 million sq. ft., including a roughly 30-acre main facility. The largest structure would be nearly
A water impoundment or what some would consider a reservoir is included in the site plan, trying to collect stormwater on the facility for treatment and reuse. That impoundment would hold roughly 3.32 million gallons of stormwater across 4 acres.
The total anticipated liquid waste generation is listed as 3.1 million gallons per day. The company said it would pre-treat its wastewater discharge to a level that is acceptable with the City of Rome. Oneida County will be improving the existing sewer system in the vicinity of the proposed plant to accommodate the flow. The documents do claim that the water treatment site would not need to expand to handle this large increase in wastewater.
A total of 760 trucks are anticipated to enter/exit the site on a normal production day. The company claims that the decibel level for normal production would be around 70 decibels.
300,000 tons of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) would be emitted per year from the site. 10 tons of garbage would be created in a normal production week.
No endangered animal species were listed on the site plans. Micron, which plans to build a mega-facility for its microchip production in Clay had to clear extra environmental hurdles after there were concerns of endangered animal species living on the proposed site.