intel-ronler.jpg
Greenhouse gasses and fluorides emitted from Intel's Oregon factories, including its Ronler Acres facility above, have been in decline in recent years as the company implemented new pollution controls. But with the massive new D1X research factory opening, the company is seeking permits to substantially increase certain pollutants.
(Randy L. Rasmussen/The Oregonian/2013)
Intel employs more Oregonians than any other business. And it pollutes more than just about anyone else in the state.
Maybe that shouldn't be surprising. It follows logically, after all, that big industry has a big impact. And key measures of Intel's environmental impact have actually been falling in recent years, even as the company has grown, because of its effort to reduce its footprint.
Intel & the air
Two measures of the chipmaker's environmental impact in Oregon have declined in recent years, but Intel's footprint is due to climb with the opening of Intel's massive new D1X research factory.
Intel greenhouse gasses, CO2 equivalents (in metric tons)
2011
: 177,000
2012
: 179,000
2013
: 151,000
(A new permit would allow emissions up to 819,000 tons.)
Fluoride emissions (U.S. tons)
2011
2.4
2012
1.6
2013
1.7
(A new permit would allow emissions up to 6.4 tons.)
For more on Intel's impact, including its water and power use, visit
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Source: Intel
Still, the chipmaker's neighbors have spent the past year coming to grips with the hard fact that what comes out of a clean room isn't all that clean.
Greenhouse gasses and hazardous air pollutants are the byproducts of computer-chip manufacturing, a fact that became painfully clear last year when Intel acknowledged it had failed to disclose fluoride emissions at its Oregon operations to state regulators.
Both the company and regulators said the fluoride emissions were within safe levels, but neighbors complained Intel's failure to disclose its emissions created a climate of uncertainly and raised questions about what else might be in their air.
Most vexing: regulators have no answers on what is safe, and what's not. They exasperated residents at public meetings by saying their job is to enforce the law – not assess hazards.
Chastened by its lapse, Intel set about repairing relations with residents in Hillsboro and Aloha. The company admitted an embarrassing failure and agreed to pay a $143,000 fine. More significantly, it settled with environmentalists who had threatened to sue the company.
That deal set out a detailed regime for testing air quality around Intel's factories in Hillsboro and Aloha, measuring the findings against strict California air-quality standards rather than Oregon's more lax regulations. Intel has already begun posting some data online, including quarterly fluoride emissions.
Just about everyone involved agrees the agreement is broadly satisfying and has the potential to answer questions about what's in the air and how to deal with that.
Intel: Where the fluoride comes from
Intel’s fluoride emissions are actually a side-effect of its effort to combat climate change. The company uses a compound called a perfluorocarbons to etch lines onto its computer chips. Because PFCs are a potent greenhouse gas, Intel breaks them down before releasing them into the atmosphere, producing fluorides and other byproducts.
While Intel scrubs its emissions to reduce both greenhouse gas and fluoride emissions, it doesn’t completely eliminate them.
It doesn't solve, though, a conceptual conundrum: How does one reconcile a big environmental impact with a major economic contribution? At 17,500, Intel's Oregon headcount is unmatched among businesses in the state. Its $2.8 billion annual payroll has no equal.
"The public should not have to be faced with that kind of a Faustian bargain: A big employer and a big polluter," said Russ Dondero, a retired Pacific University political science professor and civic activist living in Forest Grove.
Oregon should be able to have both, said Dondero, who has been outspoken in favor of more environmental oversight of industrial activities. He said employers must be able to find a way to make their products without fouling the air.
"There has to be a way to mitigate exposure," Dondero said.
Fluoride flashpoint
Ammonia. Sulfuric acid. Methane.
Intel uses them all, and many other hazardous substances, to make its computer chips. In Oregon, though, perhaps none captures the popular imagination like fluoride.
That's because of Portland's decades of defying conventional wisdom, stalwartly refusing to fluoride its water. Last year, for the fourth time since 1956, Portland voters rejected a plan to fluoridate their water. Concerns over health and environmental effects overwhelmed dentists' pleas to strengthen the teeth of the city's children.
So when word emerged five months later that Intel had been emitting atmospheric fluoride since 1978 but hadn't disclosed it to environmental regulators, the news ignited a particularly Oregonian level of fervor. Close to 3,000 residents signed petitions asking the governor and lawmakers to hold Intel accountable for its lapse.
"I will tell you, we won't make that mistake again," Jill Eiland, an Intel governmental affairs manager said last fall. "We now know Oregonians are interested in fluoride."
So fluoride became a flashpoint, but frustratingly it wasn't clear how much fluoride Intel had been emitting – or what the health consequences might be. Unfortunately, there are still no easy answers.
While Intel hadn't complied with state rules on disclosure, regulators say its actual emissions are well within legal limits.
The company detailed recent fluoride output earlier this month following its settlement with environmental groups, and provided The Oregonian with historical data.
Atmospheric fluoride in Oregon
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality says no one in Oregon produces anywhere near the level of atmospheric fluoride Intel does. But it hasn’t always been that way.
Aluminum production was one of the Northwest’s major industries in the decades after the Bonneville Power Administration’s hydroelectric projects gave the region some of the cheapest energy in the nation. The industry is now nearly extinct in the Northwest, killed off by the western energy crisis of 2000 and 2001.
Before that, though, it was a major fluoride emitter.
State records show Reynolds Aluminum’s last air-quality permit for its Troutdale smelter authorized it to emit 197 tons of fluoride annually – 30 times more than the permit Intel is seekingnow and more than 100 times greater than Intel actually emitted last year in Washington County.
The fact that state regulators authorized that much fluoride in Troutdale, though, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe. Environmentalists and state regulators say there has been less research on the subject of atmospheric fluoride than on water fluoridation (and water fluoridation remains very controversial, at least in Oregon).
Intel’s critics point to a ruling in the 1950s, when a federal court upheld a jury’s verdict that fluoride from Reynolds’ Troutdale smelter had injured a farming family living nearby. The family complained of digestive and respiratory trouble, aching joints and damage to their livers, kidneys and bones.
Historical records indicate the smelter was, at times, emitting more fluoride every day than Intel’s Oregon operations emitted all of last year.
Intel emitted 1.7 U.S. tons of fluoride in Oregon last year, according to its records, down from 2.4 tons in 2011. The state Department of Environmental Quality said the company would have been permitted to emit 3.4 tons a year had it properly sought a construction permit. Now, Intel is seeking to increase that to a ceiling of 6.4 tons for the combined output from operations in Hillsboro and Aloha.
All of Intel's atmospheric emissions are likely to increase in the coming years as the company wraps up construction on a massive, 2.2 million square foot research factory called D1X. For example, Intel is seeking environmental permits that would allow it to quintuple its greenhouse gas emissions.
Complicating the picture, not all fluorides are created equal.
"It's such a broad category of pollutants that it can be difficult to get a handle on how much risk there is associated with fluoride emissions," said John Krallman, a staff attorney at Neighbors for Clean Air, one of the environmental groups that settled with Intel last spring. "It is a category. It is not a single chemical."
That, Krallman said, is where the new air testing comes in. Intel's deal with the environmental groups calls for an inventory of atmospheric pollutants, air quality monitoring stations on site and in the community, measuring those findings against California air quality standards and an outside expert to help evaluate the findings.
Taken together, Krallman said, those steps should help identify just what's in the air, how much of a hazard it poses – and whether it comes from Intel or somewhere else.
Despite the ongoing focus on Intel, industrial operations rank low on the roster of major atmospheric pollutants in Oregon, behind residential wood burning, auto emissions, construction equipment and lawnmowers, according to a the DEQ.
"The biggest risk is from diesel. It's from cars and ships and trains. It's not from smokestacks," Krallman said.
Confronting vehicle emissions is relatively straightforward, Krallman said. It's simply a matter of political will. Industrial pollution is more complicated, he said, because each company presents its own issues – and its own solutions.
In Intel's case, Krallman said the company has done a satisfactory job of working to address neighbors concerns and improve transparency.
"So far Intel has been walking down, I think, the path that is going to help rebuild some trust in the neighborhood," he said. "There's a lot of concern out there, a lot of questioning."
From the start of the fluoride controversy, Intel has said it wants to be forthcoming with the community – hoping to avoid a repeat of a difficult situation in New Mexico, where residents have long complained that Intel factories have damaged their health. The evidence of Intel's culpability there has been inconclusive, but the company has said it allowed misperceptions to linger by not addressing residents' fears sooner.
And Intel has acknowledged that the timing of the fluoride controversy delayed its plans to ask for an extension of Oregon property tax breaks worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the company. With the fluoride settlements in hand, Intel and Washington County negotiators are close to announcing a framework for a new tax deal.
Ultimately, Intel's fluoride failing reached the highest levels of the $53 billion company. Both the chairman and chief executive have expressed regret over the disclosure lapse, and regret for the resulting breakdown in community trust.
"We made a mistake," CEO Brian Krzanich said in an interview earlier this year. "It was a mistake of omission, not of intent."
Intel agrees its environmental footprint must be managed, he said, and that the company has to work to fit in with the neighborhoods where it operates.
"We believe that having our factories in these communities is a privilege," Krzanich said.
Unlike some major industrial businesses, Intel accepts the scientific consensus around climate change and has been working for years to reduce greenhouse gasses. The company says its total emissions of greenhouse gasses fell 40 percent between 1995 and 2010 – a period when its production volume soared and its revenue more than doubled.
Even so, Intel's Oregon operations emitted the equivalent of 180,000 tons of carbon dioxide in 2012 (greenhouse gasses are rated in CO2 equivalents to enable comparisons). Excluding power plants and landfills, that's sixth most in Oregon, according to federal data.
On a per-employee basis, Intel's footprint looks a lot smaller – just 10 tons per employee in 2012 (roughly 25 tons per employee at its manufacturing campuses). Compare that to 400 tons of C02 equivalents for each employee at ON Semiconductor's operations in Gresham, and nearly 900 tons per employee at Georgia-Pacific's paper mill in Toledo.
"Anything you do for a business is going to have some kind of an environmental footprint," said Todd Brady, Intel's global environmental manager. "One way to measure yourself is: How do we do that relative to others? I think we've got a pretty good history there, a pretty good reputation."
The settlements over the fluoride issue represent an effort to restore that reputation. Brady acknowledged it created confusion and consternation, and said that monitoring and disclosure will help erase the mystery – and, if improvements are needed, give Intel a roadmap for how to proceed.
"Part of the purpose of the risk assessment is to put it in context for people: Is this a risk or not? Is this a big deal or not?" Brady said. "Our goal is the same. If we go through the risk assessment and we identify an area that's a risk for the community then we want to address it."
On that point, Intel and its critics agree.
"It makes both Intel and DEQ accountable in a way that they've never been accountable before," said Dondero, the retired Pacific University professor.
When it comes to air quality, Dondero said, what you don't know can hurt you. So he said it's essential that residents have information, and solid analysis, so they can judge the risks for themselves. Neighbors, environmentalists and the company are now negotiating a "good neighbor agreement" that would establish ongoing parameters for monitoring and evaluating Intel's emissions.
"The fluoride issue may be a non-issue," Dondero said. "Fine. Let's find this out. Let's know it, as a scientific fact."
-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; phone: 503-294-7699