Ok, so sounds like Tesla got the necessary legal provisions.

> What it did not do, explicitly, was grant Tesla the right to use public or private property for wastewater conveyance.

I'm confused, does Tesla have the right to dump water or not? I would assume that this is exactly what a permit is for?

> The drainage district that manages the ditch the pipe was discharging into was never notified that the permit existed

This should be on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; they issued the permit, so it should be on them to notify the affected area.

> Tesla also argues that the Eurofins sampling methodology was inappropriate, because the lab placed its sampling equipment in the ditch downstream of the outfall pipe rather than at the outfall itself. The permit requires monitoring at the outfall point, and the company has pointed out that ditch samples can pick up contaminants from sources that have nothing to do with Tesla’s wastewater.

As the article itself says, that is a legitimate argument.

* Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around.

* Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L. That is below the federal drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L, but present.

The hexavalent chromium is also just barely above the California drinking water standard [1]

[1] https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinki...

I find it kinda worrying that so much of the legal weight of this case doesn't seem to be about the untreated wastewater discharge at all but only about the detail that they used a county-owned ditch to do so.

So if Tesla had dug their own ditch or built the pipe all the way to Petronila Creek, the discharge would have been no problem?

(Well, that's not completely true as the additional pollutants aren't covered by the permit either - but without the ditch issue, probably no one would have commissioned an analysis of the water?)

Are permits issued loudly usually?

Americans should carefully watch what happens to these workers and their county in the coming months. Beyond that, they should ask who is still keeping an eye on polluters in 2026.

> Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around. Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L. That is below the federal drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L, but present. Strontium at 1.17 mg/L. Mazloum’s technical report on the findings noted that long-term exposure can affect bone density and kidney function in humans and wildlife. Lithium and vanadium at concentrations Lazarte’s letter described as abnormally high relative to rainwater or normal groundwater. Elevated levels of manganese, iron, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and potassium consistent with industrial discharge. Manganese, a battery process tracer, can have neurological effects at chronic doses. Excess phosphorus can cause algae blooms that strip oxygen from waterways. Ammonia in the form of nitrogen at 1.68 mg/L, amplifying the algae bloom risk.

None of these are violating the permit.

Ultimately, I view this as a values question: Is it permissible to manufacture in the US or not?

The article then proceeds to explain how they did all kinds of non-standard tests and still found nothing above the federal drinking water standard nor in violation of the permit. Yes Tesla is still evil and responsible because supposedly some nearby town is having a drought and people are "running out of water."

Shit like this and we wonder why the US is dependent on China for all rare earths.

It's quite the conundrum. What do you do? Is the energy independence worth the pollution? And is the pollution OK if it affects someone poor far away.

>Notably, no party has alleged that Tesla is in violation of any law. TCEQ [(Texas Commission on Environmental Quality)] has not found one. Tesla is operating under a permit the state agency issued. The dispute, instead, is about what the permit was supposed to cover, and what got left out of it.

> Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around.

> Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L. That is below the federal drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L, but present.

> Strontium at 1.17 mg/L. Mazloum’s technical report on the findings noted that long-term exposure can affect bone density and kidney function in humans and wildlife.

> Lithium and vanadium at concentrations Lazarte’s letter described as abnormally high relative to rainwater or normal groundwater.

> Elevated levels of manganese, iron, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and potassium consistent with industrial discharge. Manganese, a battery process tracer, can have neurological effects at chronic doses. Excess phosphorus can cause algae blooms that strip oxygen from waterways.

> Ammonia in the form of nitrogen at 1.68 mg/L, amplifying the algae bloom risk.

Strip away the sensationalism, and it just doesn't seem like much? None of these levels seem to be high enough to impair health. The 1.68ppm of ammonia would likely contribute to algae growth, but not majorly, especially if properly diluted. Home aquariums regularly run between 0 and 0.25ppm of NH3 without major issues, so as long as this is diluted 6x it shouldn't impact things.

I hate elon as much as the next guy, and they should have disposed of the water properly, but it doesn't seem to be anything like them running their unpermitted power plants in Memphis.

The problem is the ammonia concentration due to chemical reactions caused by temperature increase after leaving the facility.

:facepalm:

If you're fear-mongering, then at least take care to fear-monger correctly. From the numbers they report, it seems like Tesla is doing a good job with wastewater treatment.

Edit: clarification for people who are not chemists, it should be the other way around: "Nitrogen in the form of ammonia".

Why wasn't the sample taken at the outfall? That seems like such an obvious thing to do that there must be a reason it wasn't done. Is the outflow accessible?

What other facilities exist in the area? This is described as a ditch, not a creek or river, which implies to me that it is artificial. Is this an industrial area with other contamination?

> Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around.

I'm not sure I am parsing this correctly. To the best of my understanding this means it is just above the noise floor? What was the exposure in the Erin Brockovitch case?

This could be bad or it could not, but I simply can't take anything seriously that uses ambiguous terms so linked to woo.

231000 gallons is 1000 cubic meters, ie a 10 metre cube.

Perhaps the number of olympic size swimming pools of a standardized depth may be more useful. Perhaps the number of 3m deep Olympic sized swimming pools or gas/oil storage tanks.

The US is probably going to need to make another pass at how we're going to do that without creating polluted wastelands and super fund sites.

That doesn't matter under a communist dictatorship, but in more civilized countries people don't want it in their backyard.