Council hears questions about truck routes and FAA-cleared structure at incoming Chobani plant

Public comment and staff presentations at Rome’s March 11 council meeting focused on traffic, safety and infrastructure impacts from the planned Chobani facility at Griffith International Airport.

Amanda Cortis, speaking for Onidita County, told the council the county — in coordination with the New York State Department of Transportation — completed traffic-impact analyses during conceptual design of the airport-site “triangle” development and that a proposed agreement obligates the county to perform additional analyses and implement mitigation measures if DOT later requests them. "We will work with them to implement any additional traffic or safety mitigation measures," Cortis said.

Resident Dan LeFever told the council he supports the plant but raised specific concerns about local roads and safety, saying he believed the facility includes a roughly 150-foot building and citing reports that full operations could mean "over 200 tanker trucks" coming into Rome. "That's a lot of trucks," LeFever said, asking whether heavy vehicles would be routed through residential streets such as River Road and Gford Road.

Public works Commissioner Juliano responded that county and state engineers are reviewing traffic studies and that DOT has ultimate jurisdiction over state routes including Route 825. Juliano said engineers use average daily traffic (ADT) figures to predict impacts and that the project team intends to keep heavy vehicles on designated truck routes — state routes and boulevards — and not on smaller neighborhood streets. "We've heard numbers between 180 and 200 a day to supply Chobani when it's fully built out," Juliano said, adding that full buildout is currently projected for 2029–2030.

Juliano also addressed the tall storage or cooling structure residents referenced, saying that the single storage building is about 120–140 feet high and has been cleared through the Federal Aviation Administration because it sits in the runway flight pattern. He said the storage building is separate from the manufacturing/production building, which he described as a much lower, two-story structure.

The council voted to authorize a phased mitigation agreement with NYSDOT and Onidita County related to the site, signaling intergovernmental coordination on future traffic analysis and mitigation. Council members and staff also noted that the county and state are pursuing related roadway projects (pavement work, Chestnut Street complete-streets funding) that could affect local traffic patterns.

What happens next: officials said DOT will continue to lead jurisdictional decisions on state roads, county and city engineers will coordinate with DOT, and the phased mitigation agreement provides a framework for future studies and mitigation if DOT requests them.