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Fertilizer Dump Spoils Intel's Pure Water
An anonymous reader writes "Intel had to shut down part of its Irish plant for a while because of the extreme cold and the fact the local council polluted the water supply with fertilizer. Apparently it got down to -12 degrees C at the Intel plant in Leixlip, County Kildare. But to make matters worse, the local council ran out of rock salt to grit the roads and opted for fertilizer instead. There were fears that ammonia and nitrates in the fertilizer might have contaminated the local water supply. The problem for the chipmaker is that it needs extremely pure water for its manufacturing processes."
I was in this very plant a year or two ago and seem to recall them saying that not even filtering was good enough, they actually had to distill the water they got because filtering won't remove all impurities (enough for most practical purposes, but I think the reason they need absolutely pure is because pure H2O doesn't conduct electricity, but the slightest impurity will).
I find it very hard to believe this same plant shut down because they didn't consider the possibility of their water supply (completely outdoors and unguarded) being contaminated somehow.
They surely have, as the water in the water supply are never pure, but there is a difference between purifying normal water, and contaminated water.
I'd guess their system could not handle, (or could not process enough of), the contaminated water.
This is testable. Add 100g of nitrate fertilizer to 4 liters of water, and let it sit overnight. In the morning pour the water through your filter of choice and then drink the result. Delicious right?
Filters and purification mechanisms have limits, those limits are chosen at design time based on the range of pollutants expected in the input water. If you increase those pollutants by orders of magnitude it's likely the purification system you have just won't cut it.
Water filters aren't magical devices. They can only filter so much crap out of the water before they need to be replaced. It might not make financial sense to continue operating the plant if they have to replace the filter for every fifty gallons of water they use.
The sites intel left in the USA to be cleaned up by the US gov.
A generation later Intel now needs its water cleaning up.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"