‘A thirsty operation’: TSMC plant arrives amid water doubts, but Phoenix isn’t worried

Greg Jackson doesn’t have a window in his office, but he says he doesn’t need one.

As the facilities manager for the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s massive new factories in north Phoenix, Jackson spends a lot of time away from his desk, on his feet.

Jackson’s responsibilities cover the mundane and the complex. One moment, he is overseeing the janitorial staff that keeps the office windows clean, and another he is managing the delicate etiquette of shipping and receiving sensitive chemicals.

And he will continue to oversee the construction of the most advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities in the U.S. on a plot of desert near Interstate 17, a vast project that, over the next six years, will rise literally from the dust.

As with all new growth in the desert, the facility requires water, and semiconductor manufacturing is a particularly water-consumptive industry. That, too, falls under Jackson’s purview, everything from the fountain outside the office entrance to the facility’s massive internal water treatment facility, which will handle the equivalent of a 90,000-person town’s wastewater.

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