Intel Plant Replenishes Aquifer for Thirsty Arizona City
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Most people don’t associate Intel Corp., the world’s largest semiconductor maker, with water.
Yet each day, 2 million gallons of industrial wastewater -- enough to fill at least 30,000 bathtubs -- are piped from Intel plants in Chandler, Arizona, to a facility a mile away where it’s treated, then returned to an underground aquifer. Intel, the city’s largest employer, recycles about 60 percent of its water and is expanding the treatment facilities and increasing the amount it reuses as the company finishes a $5 billion plant that will build more efficient computer chips.