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> The permit, a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System authorization known as TPDES, allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day to be dis

> The permit, a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System authorization known as TPDES, allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day to be discharged into an unnamed ditch that flows into Petronila Creek and from there into Baffin Bay, a longtime South Texas saltwater fishing destination. 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.

Braxton1980 4mo ago
Would Eurofins be able to set up monitoring on Tesla's property? What other sources would have similar pollutants to a Lithium factory? It seems pretty specific and if there was some other obvious source why wouldn't Tesla point that out?
- wongarsu 4mo ago
  They list 6 pollutants, but only two of them seem relevant to the legality of this. One is an amount of arsenic that is a quarter of what's allowed in drinking water. So technically, someone dumping drinking water in the ditch could contaminate this measurement. The other is hexavalent chromium, which is 4% higher than allowed. According to wikipedia that is "indeed one of the more widely used heavy metals in various sectors and industries (metallurgy, chemicals, textiles, etc.) with particular involvement in the metal coating sector" and used in the production of all kinds of dyes, paints, plastics, etc. It can also be formed by welding stainless steel, and is found in drinking water ... that doesn't sound very specific to me. I don't know where that ditch is, but on google maps the Tesla lithum plant is right next to a place storing drilling equipment outdoors. Runoff from any kind of industry nearby could end up in that ditch. After all, collecting runoff is what ditches are there for
  - defrost 4mo ago
    > collecting runoff is what ditches are there for Sure. What ditches aren't for, and vary greatly wrt, is discharging all inputs out to sea or or a large body of water for "sufficient" dilution. Ditches can be sealed (concrete lined, with a membrane underneath) or, say, just dirt. Dirt ditches with a long run filter .. heavier particles drop out, weeds and other organics grab onto various compounds, etc. Those things that filter out and layer into a ditch and can then concentrate over time (subject to terms and conditions). A reasonable question, that should be asked of any industrial area, is whether dirt ditches, leaky pipes, the whole deal, are accumulating toxins over a decade or more ... and what the impact and remediation plan is for that. Worst case, ditch line concentrates leach down into a water table close enough to an extraction pump that goes to water food or be drunk by people. (Or later in time earthworks for housing kick up a dust layer that just happens to be mostly "20 years of bad ju-ju") Not insurmountable, something to be wary of, these things have happened.
    - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
      >Worst case, ditch line concentrates leach down into a water table close enough to an extraction pump that goes to water food or be drunk by people. (Or later in time earthworks for housing kick up a dust layer that just happens to be mostly "20 years of bad ju-ju") Pretty much all water discharge rules are built around filtering stuff out. I thought we wanted it in the dirt so it would't be in the water? The part that drives me up the wall is the two faced capricious nature of all this. I have a grass parking lot and everyone screeches about tire rubber concentrating in the dirt. I pave the lot and everyone screeches about the rubber in the runoff I pay an engineering firm to say that my grass strip on the side of the paved parking lot is an engineered feature that per their calculation will catch yada yada yada blah blah blah and I get my permit. Seems to me like you can't put anything anywhere. You just go in circles until you've the right rings for the right amount and then they say "this is fine". Whether the ditch is dirt and grass (nature's filter) or lined with something, hexavalent chromium is just the big boy big dollar version of the same stupid parking lot problem. Say they filter the chromium out. So then it winds up concentrated in something. Where does it go then? Seems like the only way to permanently deal with waste is to sell it into another jurisdiction where the buyer has kissed the right rings to let it be used as some input to some other process where it then goes from waste to something else.
- ggreer 4mo ago
  Hexavalent chromium can come from many industrial sources, including welding stainless steel. If you go to Tesla's lithium refinery in google maps[1] and follow the drainage ditch along highway 77 (to the northeast) about a half mile, you'll see a company called Tex-Isle Processing. They supply steel pipes and coating services for oil drilling.[2] It could be that one of their manufacturing processes creates hexavalent chromium. In my opinion there isn't enough information to blame anyone for the slightly-above-drinking-water levels of hexavalent chromium. The drainage ditch goes along a highway and a rail line, so pollution could come from all kinds of places. 1. https://maps.app.goo.gl/7iNTbiPcs1sZ9CqP8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/7iNTbiPcs1sZ9CqP8 2. https://www.texisle.com/ https://www.texisle.com/
  - xg15 4mo ago
    Ok, that's one of the pollutants... But I agree, measuring at the end of the ditch was the wrong thing to do if they take issue with that specific factory (though it was the right thing to do to prove a harmful pollution exists in general) So another measurement directly at the pipe would be in order.
    - ggreer 4mo ago
      The measured levels of arsenic, strontium, and vanadium are below the limits for drinking water, even in California. And 4% of drinking water sources in California have higher hexavalent chromium content than the water in that ditch.[1] Besides sodium from salt, the only metal that was particularly high was lithium, at 0.0714mg/L or 71 micrograms per liter. A significant fraction of drinking water in the US has higher concentrations than that.[2] The level of salt shouldn't affect much. Adding up the chloride and sodium content gets you 684mg/L, which is on the low end of brackish water (500-30,000mg/L). The limit for agricultural irrigation is 2,000mg/L, and photos of the pipe show plenty of grass growing around and in the water. The phosphorous could come from fertilizers, as there's plenty of farm land in the area. That would also explain the higher ammonium levels, as both anhydrous ammonia and ammonium phosphate are common fertilizers. The article is really about how sensitive our scientific instruments are, not how dangerous the water is. It reminds me of articles like Vice's American Honey Is Radioactive from Decades of Nuclear Bomb Testing[3], where the most radioactive honey they could find was 10 times less radioactive than a banana. 1. https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/Chromium6.html https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinki... 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720382243 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489... 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26906838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26906838
tremon 4mo ago
> 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? If you have a permit to dump wastewater into a river, you are not allowed to dump your wastewater wherever in that river's basin on the assumption that it will eventually flow into the river. You are supposed to use a pipeline for wastewater transfer.
- wongarsu 4mo ago
  But according to the article the permit is for dumping wastewater into a ditch. And Tesla appears to deliver the wastewater to that ditch by pipe. And it doesn't appear like the pipe is the topic of contention here, but where it ends and what comes out of it. All things that seem to be properly permitted, from what the article is telling us
  - wil421 4mo ago
    They have a permit to dump water but not put it in the ditch where the pipe runs. They need to get it to a body of water, not a ditch. Dumping into the drainage ditch or running a pipe in the drainage ditch requires a separate permit. The water quality is also questionable. Tesla and the drainage company are at odds on the testing method. At least that’s my understanding of the situation
    - solderlocks 4mo ago
      Doesn't the article state that "The permit, a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System authorization known as TPDES, allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day to be discharged into an unnamed ditch..."?
      - wil421 4mo ago
        They don’t own the drainage ditch. They can still dump the water into the local watershed/river whatever body of water per the permit you stated.
    - deleted 4mo ago
xg15 4mo ago
> allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day What I'd like to know is what "treated" means here and whether the pollutants measured in the water are in compliance of that definition. After all, the problem that there is an important fishing area downstream does not go away, whether there is a permit or not. So in my understanding, the whole reason why the permit could be issued in the first place was the assurance that the water was treated enough to not be a danger to downstream consumers. But pitch black fluid with questionable analysis results doesn't exactly seem like that. > As the article itself says, that is a legitimate argument. Technically yes, but I think it's somewhat unlikely that there just happens to be a chromium/arsenic/lithium/strontium deposit somewhere along the length of the ditch that would re-pollute Tesla's pristine wastewater and make the readings look bad. Or at least, the question whether there are any potential other sources for the substances should be easy to answer, by looking at a map or sending someone to check the ditch for any other unexpected pipes.
- 1234letshaveatw 4mo ago
  ggreer did the work for us https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824
advisedwang 4mo ago
> Tesla have the right to dump water or not? I would assume that this is exactly what a permit is for? My guess is this is a question of overlapping jurisdictions. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is presumably responsible for water quality, and so gets a say on what kinds of discharge in the state are safe. The drainage district has to manage the actual ditches and water on the ground, so they get a say (or at least notice) of new users of their infrastructure. Just like how the DOT gets to create rules about locomotives but Railways still get to decide who can run trains on their tracks.
- dylan604 4mo ago
  > Just like how the DOT gets to create rules about locomotives but Railways still get to decide who can run trains on their tracks. Fun fact, in 2005, as of Texas Railroad Commission no longer has anything to do with railroads and moved that oversight to the DoT. The TRC now is only involved with oil&gas. It is one of my favorite dumb things about Texas. Why not just rename the group and eliminate the TRC altogether, oh right, politics.
- 486sx33 4mo ago
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dylan604 4mo ago
>> 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. That's some top notch weasel wording right there. If sampling from the ditch reveals contaminants that are not natural to the area but are the same contaminants that are measured from the output of the pipe, then a natural question could be "are the contaminants leaking from upstream and leaching into the ground run off into the ditch?" which would still be a Tesla problem.
- tpmoney 4mo ago
  My reading is that Tesla's contention is those contaminants are not coming from their pipe, hence the objection to the measurement being taken from somewhere other than the output of their pipe. And while the contaminants may well be coming from Tesla's pipe, given the apparent lack of coordination between the various governmental agencies involved, it seems reasonable to me to say that they need to sample from the pipe output in order to actually say what Tesla is or isn't putting into the ditch, since apparently they might be able to just walk a few hundred feet further up the ditch and find other discharge pipes they don't know about yet.
  - dylan604 4mo ago
    Sure, but that's also the same thing someone would say that knows they are leeching contaminants from other parts of their property but are not coming out this output pipe.
    - tpmoney 4mo ago
      It's also the same thing someone would say that knows they're running a satanic cult sacrificing whales in the sub-basements of the property but knows the evidence of that isn't coming out of this output pipe. And at least so far, the government has not alleged that the contamination is coming from some other here-to-fore undiscovered but connected to the tesla factory location, nor that they are running a satanic whale sacrificing cult in their sub-basements. So speculating about that seems a bit pre-mature. Perhaps more crucially though, it's also the same thing someone would say who is actually innocent of leeching contaminants. Whether they are or not, nothing in this article is providing any useful evidence.
_wire_ 4mo ago
>> The permit requires monitoring at the outfall point... The permit is a license to pollute, but go on: >> ...and the company has pointed out that ditch samples can pick up contaminants from sources that have nothing to do with Tesla’s wastewater. Downstream, others are picking up contaminants from a source that has nothing to do with them. > As the article itself says, that is a legitimate argument. OK, lovely, glad that's settled. NEXT!
SecretDreams 4mo ago
> Lithium and vanadium at concentrations Lazarte’s letter described as abnormally high relative to rainwater or normal groundwater. > 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. > 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. Some of the elements of note that were detected. These are all well above background levels. The point about not measuring at the outfall is valid, but probably not relevant. Unless we think there are other lithium and hex sources nearby. The real crime is that a permit was issued at all and that it was not so comprehensive. But that's the beauty of Texas - their citizens love this kind of thing.
- dwattttt 4mo ago
  Per ggreer's comment [0], there are other potential sources nearby. It's pretty annoying all told. It invalidates the results; it takes them from "this is clear evidence of a breach" into "maybe it's in breach. Or maybe someone else is. Or maybe both are within their respective limits" [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824
  - SecretDreams 4mo ago
    Agreed. Per the article, sounds like everyone would have benefited from more discussion and transparency either way. I find it surprising that these types of permits are issued without formal review at a town council style setting. Ultimately, the people living in these areas should have an outsized say on what is piped into their way supplies. Same forum could also be used to show it is safe. Or discuss the safety of the ask.
- bloaf 4mo ago
  A counterpoint is this The lab tested for chromium in two ways: one test (ICP) measures all chromium of any kind, and the other measures hexavalent chromium specifically. The ICP test returned a concentration that was an order of magnitude smaller than the hexavalent test. That is to say, the tests contradict each other (because the whole is smaller than the part), and are both at the bottom of range for the tests performed. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28055380-j2673-1-uds-level-2-report-final-report/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28055380-j2673-1-uds...
apical_dendrite 4mo ago
This Inside Climate News article is a little clearer. > TCEQ began its investigation after workers for Nueces County Drainage District No. 2, which presides over the ditch area, found an unfamiliar pipe stretched across the district’s easement, expelling black liquid into the ditch > The permit didn’t allow Tesla to use private or public property to transport the wastewater. Under the permit, it was Tesla’s responsibility to acquire whatever property rights were required to use the discharge route, the TCEQ permit states. So one issue is that while they may have had a permit to dump wastewater, they didn't have a right to build a pipe on land controlled by the drainage district. Tesla, not TCEQ, needed to notify the drainage district because Tesla was the one building on land controlled by that district. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19032026/tesla-lithium-refinery-wastewater-discharge/ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19032026/tesla-lithium-re...
didibus 4mo ago
Personally, I find all these "do they have the necessary approvals or not" discussions are besides the point that matters. For business, those are red tape, wasted time, and unnecessary bureaucracy. For residents and citizens, what permits were approved or not don't matter, but if we tolerate the pollution cost that results, no matter if it was legally approved or not. I'd rather an article that argues about if this pollution cost that is being externalized to Texans to pay, justified and a net win for them, and if it is, than what's holding up the permits, and if not, then why is this permitted at all, even if partially.
- ethagknight 4mo ago
  The permits are supposed to provide a review of the proposed discharge, usually requires a public notice and review period, and ensures compliance. I assume this Texas permit is typical to that end. While permits CAN be “just red tape”, permits SHOULD be, and frequently are, the conclusion of an appropriate review process that industry standards are being implemented.
  - nerdyadventurer 4mo ago
    Does any of these laws matter to rich, given amount of lobbying going on in US?
fhn 4mo ago
Keyword here is TREATED. Now Telsa will probably argue they added a dash of salt which they contend is "treated" wastewater. Billionaires don't care about you or your health.
rawgabbit 4mo ago
Texas is notoriously lax. State regulators are quick to dismiss any concerns when there is money to be made. https://news.utexas.edu/2014/03/27/air-pollution-and-hydraulic-fracturing-better-monitoring-planning-and-tracking-of-health-effects-needed-in-texas/ https://news.utexas.edu/2014/03/27/air-pollution-and-hydraul... https://publichealthwatch.org/2024/12/12/houston-air-pollution-benzene-cancer/ https://publichealthwatch.org/2024/12/12/houston-air-polluti...
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

Braxton1980 4mo ago

Would Eurofins be able to set up monitoring on Tesla's property? What other sources would have similar pollutants to a Lithium factory? It seems pretty specific and if there was some other obvious source why wouldn't Tesla point that out?

wongarsu 4mo ago
They list 6 pollutants, but only two of them seem relevant to the legality of this. One is an amount of arsenic that is a quarter of what's allowed in drinking water. So technically, someone dumping drinking water in the ditch could contaminate this measurement. The other is hexavalent chromium, which is 4% higher than allowed. According to wikipedia that is "indeed one of the more widely used heavy metals in various sectors and industries (metallurgy, chemicals, textiles, etc.) with particular involvement in the metal coating sector" and used in the production of all kinds of dyes, paints, plastics, etc. It can also be formed by welding stainless steel, and is found in drinking water ... that doesn't sound very specific to me. I don't know where that ditch is, but on google maps the Tesla lithum plant is right next to a place storing drilling equipment outdoors. Runoff from any kind of industry nearby could end up in that ditch. After all, collecting runoff is what ditches are there for
- defrost 4mo ago
  > collecting runoff is what ditches are there for Sure. What ditches aren't for, and vary greatly wrt, is discharging all inputs out to sea or or a large body of water for "sufficient" dilution. Ditches can be sealed (concrete lined, with a membrane underneath) or, say, just dirt. Dirt ditches with a long run filter .. heavier particles drop out, weeds and other organics grab onto various compounds, etc. Those things that filter out and layer into a ditch and can then concentrate over time (subject to terms and conditions). A reasonable question, that should be asked of any industrial area, is whether dirt ditches, leaky pipes, the whole deal, are accumulating toxins over a decade or more ... and what the impact and remediation plan is for that. Worst case, ditch line concentrates leach down into a water table close enough to an extraction pump that goes to water food or be drunk by people. (Or later in time earthworks for housing kick up a dust layer that just happens to be mostly "20 years of bad ju-ju") Not insurmountable, something to be wary of, these things have happened.
  - cucumber3732842 4mo ago
    >Worst case, ditch line concentrates leach down into a water table close enough to an extraction pump that goes to water food or be drunk by people. (Or later in time earthworks for housing kick up a dust layer that just happens to be mostly "20 years of bad ju-ju") Pretty much all water discharge rules are built around filtering stuff out. I thought we wanted it in the dirt so it would't be in the water? The part that drives me up the wall is the two faced capricious nature of all this. I have a grass parking lot and everyone screeches about tire rubber concentrating in the dirt. I pave the lot and everyone screeches about the rubber in the runoff I pay an engineering firm to say that my grass strip on the side of the paved parking lot is an engineered feature that per their calculation will catch yada yada yada blah blah blah and I get my permit. Seems to me like you can't put anything anywhere. You just go in circles until you've the right rings for the right amount and then they say "this is fine". Whether the ditch is dirt and grass (nature's filter) or lined with something, hexavalent chromium is just the big boy big dollar version of the same stupid parking lot problem. Say they filter the chromium out. So then it winds up concentrated in something. Where does it go then? Seems like the only way to permanently deal with waste is to sell it into another jurisdiction where the buyer has kissed the right rings to let it be used as some input to some other process where it then goes from waste to something else.
ggreer 4mo ago
Hexavalent chromium can come from many industrial sources, including welding stainless steel. If you go to Tesla's lithium refinery in google maps[1] and follow the drainage ditch along highway 77 (to the northeast) about a half mile, you'll see a company called Tex-Isle Processing. They supply steel pipes and coating services for oil drilling.[2] It could be that one of their manufacturing processes creates hexavalent chromium. In my opinion there isn't enough information to blame anyone for the slightly-above-drinking-water levels of hexavalent chromium. The drainage ditch goes along a highway and a rail line, so pollution could come from all kinds of places. 1. https://maps.app.goo.gl/7iNTbiPcs1sZ9CqP8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/7iNTbiPcs1sZ9CqP8 2. https://www.texisle.com/ https://www.texisle.com/
- xg15 4mo ago
  Ok, that's one of the pollutants... But I agree, measuring at the end of the ditch was the wrong thing to do if they take issue with that specific factory (though it was the right thing to do to prove a harmful pollution exists in general) So another measurement directly at the pipe would be in order.
  - ggreer 4mo ago
    The measured levels of arsenic, strontium, and vanadium are below the limits for drinking water, even in California. And 4% of drinking water sources in California have higher hexavalent chromium content than the water in that ditch.[1] Besides sodium from salt, the only metal that was particularly high was lithium, at 0.0714mg/L or 71 micrograms per liter. A significant fraction of drinking water in the US has higher concentrations than that.[2] The level of salt shouldn't affect much. Adding up the chloride and sodium content gets you 684mg/L, which is on the low end of brackish water (500-30,000mg/L). The limit for agricultural irrigation is 2,000mg/L, and photos of the pipe show plenty of grass growing around and in the water. The phosphorous could come from fertilizers, as there's plenty of farm land in the area. That would also explain the higher ammonium levels, as both anhydrous ammonia and ammonium phosphate are common fertilizers. The article is really about how sensitive our scientific instruments are, not how dangerous the water is. It reminds me of articles like Vice's American Honey Is Radioactive from Decades of Nuclear Bomb Testing[3], where the most radioactive honey they could find was 10 times less radioactive than a banana. 1. https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/Chromium6.html https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinki... 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969720382243 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489... 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26906838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26906838

tremon 4mo ago

> 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? If you have a permit to dump wastewater into a river, you are not allowed to dump your wastewater wherever in that river's basin on the assumption that it will eventually flow into the river. You are supposed to use a pipeline for wastewater transfer.

wongarsu 4mo ago
But according to the article the permit is for dumping wastewater into a ditch. And Tesla appears to deliver the wastewater to that ditch by pipe. And it doesn't appear like the pipe is the topic of contention here, but where it ends and what comes out of it. All things that seem to be properly permitted, from what the article is telling us
- wil421 4mo ago
  They have a permit to dump water but not put it in the ditch where the pipe runs. They need to get it to a body of water, not a ditch. Dumping into the drainage ditch or running a pipe in the drainage ditch requires a separate permit. The water quality is also questionable. Tesla and the drainage company are at odds on the testing method. At least that’s my understanding of the situation
  - solderlocks 4mo ago
    Doesn't the article state that "The permit, a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System authorization known as TPDES, allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day to be discharged into an unnamed ditch..."?
    - wil421 4mo ago
      They don’t own the drainage ditch. They can still dump the water into the local watershed/river whatever body of water per the permit you stated.
  - deleted 4mo ago

xg15 4mo ago

> allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day What I'd like to know is what "treated" means here and whether the pollutants measured in the water are in compliance of that definition. After all, the problem that there is an important fishing area downstream does not go away, whether there is a permit or not. So in my understanding, the whole reason why the permit could be issued in the first place was the assurance that the water was treated enough to not be a danger to downstream consumers. But pitch black fluid with questionable analysis results doesn't exactly seem like that. > As the article itself says, that is a legitimate argument. Technically yes, but I think it's somewhat unlikely that there just happens to be a chromium/arsenic/lithium/strontium deposit somewhere along the length of the ditch that would re-pollute Tesla's pristine wastewater and make the readings look bad. Or at least, the question whether there are any potential other sources for the substances should be easy to answer, by looking at a map or sending someone to check the ditch for any other unexpected pipes.

1234letshaveatw 4mo ago
ggreer did the work for us https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824

advisedwang 4mo ago

> Tesla have the right to dump water or not? I would assume that this is exactly what a permit is for? My guess is this is a question of overlapping jurisdictions. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is presumably responsible for water quality, and so gets a say on what kinds of discharge in the state are safe. The drainage district has to manage the actual ditches and water on the ground, so they get a say (or at least notice) of new users of their infrastructure. Just like how the DOT gets to create rules about locomotives but Railways still get to decide who can run trains on their tracks.

dylan604 4mo ago
> Just like how the DOT gets to create rules about locomotives but Railways still get to decide who can run trains on their tracks. Fun fact, in 2005, as of Texas Railroad Commission no longer has anything to do with railroads and moved that oversight to the DoT. The TRC now is only involved with oil&gas. It is one of my favorite dumb things about Texas. Why not just rename the group and eliminate the TRC altogether, oh right, politics.
486sx33 4mo ago
[dead]

dylan604 4mo ago

>> 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. That's some top notch weasel wording right there. If sampling from the ditch reveals contaminants that are not natural to the area but are the same contaminants that are measured from the output of the pipe, then a natural question could be "are the contaminants leaking from upstream and leaching into the ground run off into the ditch?" which would still be a Tesla problem.

tpmoney 4mo ago
My reading is that Tesla's contention is those contaminants are not coming from their pipe, hence the objection to the measurement being taken from somewhere other than the output of their pipe. And while the contaminants may well be coming from Tesla's pipe, given the apparent lack of coordination between the various governmental agencies involved, it seems reasonable to me to say that they need to sample from the pipe output in order to actually say what Tesla is or isn't putting into the ditch, since apparently they might be able to just walk a few hundred feet further up the ditch and find other discharge pipes they don't know about yet.
- dylan604 4mo ago
  Sure, but that's also the same thing someone would say that knows they are leeching contaminants from other parts of their property but are not coming out this output pipe.
  - tpmoney 4mo ago
    It's also the same thing someone would say that knows they're running a satanic cult sacrificing whales in the sub-basements of the property but knows the evidence of that isn't coming out of this output pipe. And at least so far, the government has not alleged that the contamination is coming from some other here-to-fore undiscovered but connected to the tesla factory location, nor that they are running a satanic whale sacrificing cult in their sub-basements. So speculating about that seems a bit pre-mature. Perhaps more crucially though, it's also the same thing someone would say who is actually innocent of leeching contaminants. Whether they are or not, nothing in this article is providing any useful evidence.

_wire_ 4mo ago

>> The permit requires monitoring at the outfall point... The permit is a license to pollute, but go on: >> ...and the company has pointed out that ditch samples can pick up contaminants from sources that have nothing to do with Tesla’s wastewater. Downstream, others are picking up contaminants from a source that has nothing to do with them. > As the article itself says, that is a legitimate argument. OK, lovely, glad that's settled. NEXT!

SecretDreams 4mo ago

> Lithium and vanadium at concentrations Lazarte’s letter described as abnormally high relative to rainwater or normal groundwater. > 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. > 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. Some of the elements of note that were detected. These are all well above background levels. The point about not measuring at the outfall is valid, but probably not relevant. Unless we think there are other lithium and hex sources nearby. The real crime is that a permit was issued at all and that it was not so comprehensive. But that's the beauty of Texas - their citizens love this kind of thing.

dwattttt 4mo ago
Per ggreer's comment [0], there are other potential sources nearby. It's pretty annoying all told. It invalidates the results; it takes them from "this is clear evidence of a breach" into "maybe it's in breach. Or maybe someone else is. Or maybe both are within their respective limits" [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824
- SecretDreams 4mo ago
  Agreed. Per the article, sounds like everyone would have benefited from more discussion and transparency either way. I find it surprising that these types of permits are issued without formal review at a town council style setting. Ultimately, the people living in these areas should have an outsized say on what is piped into their way supplies. Same forum could also be used to show it is safe. Or discuss the safety of the ask.
bloaf 4mo ago
A counterpoint is this The lab tested for chromium in two ways: one test (ICP) measures all chromium of any kind, and the other measures hexavalent chromium specifically. The ICP test returned a concentration that was an order of magnitude smaller than the hexavalent test. That is to say, the tests contradict each other (because the whole is smaller than the part), and are both at the bottom of range for the tests performed. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28055380-j2673-1-uds-level-2-report-final-report/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28055380-j2673-1-uds...

apical_dendrite 4mo ago

This Inside Climate News article is a little clearer. > TCEQ began its investigation after workers for Nueces County Drainage District No. 2, which presides over the ditch area, found an unfamiliar pipe stretched across the district’s easement, expelling black liquid into the ditch > The permit didn’t allow Tesla to use private or public property to transport the wastewater. Under the permit, it was Tesla’s responsibility to acquire whatever property rights were required to use the discharge route, the TCEQ permit states. So one issue is that while they may have had a permit to dump wastewater, they didn't have a right to build a pipe on land controlled by the drainage district. Tesla, not TCEQ, needed to notify the drainage district because Tesla was the one building on land controlled by that district. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19032026/tesla-lithium-refinery-wastewater-discharge/ https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19032026/tesla-lithium-re...

didibus 4mo ago

Personally, I find all these "do they have the necessary approvals or not" discussions are besides the point that matters. For business, those are red tape, wasted time, and unnecessary bureaucracy. For residents and citizens, what permits were approved or not don't matter, but if we tolerate the pollution cost that results, no matter if it was legally approved or not. I'd rather an article that argues about if this pollution cost that is being externalized to Texans to pay, justified and a net win for them, and if it is, than what's holding up the permits, and if not, then why is this permitted at all, even if partially.

ethagknight 4mo ago
The permits are supposed to provide a review of the proposed discharge, usually requires a public notice and review period, and ensures compliance. I assume this Texas permit is typical to that end. While permits CAN be “just red tape”, permits SHOULD be, and frequently are, the conclusion of an appropriate review process that industry standards are being implemented.
- nerdyadventurer 4mo ago
  Does any of these laws matter to rich, given amount of lobbying going on in US?

fhn 4mo ago

Keyword here is TREATED. Now Telsa will probably argue they added a dash of salt which they contend is "treated" wastewater. Billionaires don't care about you or your health.

rawgabbit 4mo ago

Texas is notoriously lax. State regulators are quick to dismiss any concerns when there is money to be made. https://news.utexas.edu/2014/03/27/air-pollution-and-hydraulic-fracturing-better-monitoring-planning-and-tracking-of-health-effects-needed-in-texas/ https://news.utexas.edu/2014/03/27/air-pollution-and-hydraul... https://publichealthwatch.org/2024/12/12/houston-air-pollution-benzene-cancer/ https://publichealthwatch.org/2024/12/12/houston-air-polluti...

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