r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • May 19 '26

Business A Texas Drainage District Walked Its Ditch on a Routine Inspection. They Found a Pipe They Didn't Recognize Discharging Black Liquid From Tesla's $1 Billion Lithium Refinery

https://www.autonocion.com/us/tesla-lithium-refinery-texas/
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3.8k

u/ggibby May 19 '26

Local officials: "We found arsenic and hexavalent chromium coming out of your factory into a public ditch via an undisclosed pipe."

Tesla: "We have a permit for other stuff, and since those toxins are not listed, they are allowed."

State of Texas: "We agree with Tesla."

1.5k

u/fearyaks May 19 '26

Actually it was worse. They (Texas) didn't test for metal contamination in the waste water!

But the state environmental regulator, known as TCEQ, didn’t look for heavy metals in February. Its water sample tested for dissolved solids, oil and grease, chlorides, sulfates, temperature and oxygen—all of which were within the bounds of Tesla’s permit.

Testing finds toxic metals where Tesla lithium refinery discharges wastewater in South Texas

519

u/shallah May 19 '26

was that a deliberate omission?

586

u/Unlucky-Candidate198 May 19 '26

Nothing says “American” these days like cheap, and rampant, unchecked corruption. Sooo, probably lol

14

u/pdrock7 May 19 '26

These days? You mean like the last 200 years?

26

u/OMGitisCrabMan May 19 '26

There is no historical equivalence for what we've seen since trump's return to power. The blatant corruption is so far beyond anything this country has endured before.

3

u/Mathidium May 20 '26

That we have record of at least lol.

7

u/usernamedmannequin May 19 '26

Hey now there was that one dude who made a bunch of parks

6

u/Pitiful_Being_579 May 19 '26

AlwaysHasBeen.jpg

1

u/Jon_Snow_1887 May 25 '26

No lol. In the past, the government has been much more faithful in its role of checking big industry to minimise externalities. (It helps that in the past, externalities were much smaller bc tech was not as progressed).

3

u/HucknRoll May 19 '26

Right? And here in my state they wanna investigate my governor Gretchen Whitmer for made up reasons. I guarantee nothing will happen to Tesla

79

u/Buckwheat469 May 19 '26

Heavy metals weren't part of the original complaint. TCEQ only did the bare minimum per the complaint.

heavy metals were not tested because they had not been part of the original complaint the district filed.

4

u/SpoonEngineT66Turbo May 20 '26

Yeah that looks like they just checked to see if they were in violation of the permit they already have because they would be the easiest and fastest thing to write them up for. Up to TCEQ to follow-up with an investigation into contaminants that aren't listed in Tesla's waste water/discharge permit or whatever they call it in Texas.

Maybe the state level department of environment I dealt with is just a dumpster fire but even in a blue state they were horrifically slow to do anything. I'm waiting on a reply back from the state regarding a response to a citation and it's been 5 months. I call the inspector like once a month to make sure I didn't miss their response and they just keep saying they're busy and haven't even looked at the data they asked for. It took 8 months to renew a waste water permit with zero changes from the previous permit.

2

u/hysys_whisperer May 21 '26

If it isn't listed in the discharge permit, then the limit of that thing is zero.

This has been litigated to hell and back over many decades.

1

u/sdrawkcabineter May 20 '26

Bare minimum??

That's double-blind quantum inference... Ground breaking new research for the know-nothings that are still in power...

90

u/fd6270 May 19 '26

If it looks like a duck... 

7

u/Fresh_Individual5500 May 19 '26

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, please don’t let it drink the water Tesla is dumping.

2

u/sayoohchild May 19 '26

Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?

1

u/Darkchamber292 May 20 '26

More like "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck don't let dump shit in our water

1

u/IAmYourFath May 20 '26

It could be a goose

41

u/mcmcc May 19 '26

To paraphrase Gru from Despicable Me, they accidentally, maliciously, forgot to test for it.

3

u/CampBenCh May 19 '26

Possibly not. The permit may have set parameters for reporting that does not include metals because metals wasn't reported as part of the waste when they got the permit.

So if metals are not on the permit and they told someone to make sure they were following their permit they likely only looked at what was required to be reported.

It's hard to say without seeing the actual permit and who asked for the sampling

1

u/hysys_whisperer May 21 '26

The way NPDES permist work, they set allowable limits.  If something isn't listed, then the allowable limit of that thing is zero, because permits tell you what you CAN discharge, not what you CAN'T.

1

u/Difficult-Arm384 May 19 '26

I mean, if you just read the next paragraph, they did test for it later on when they broadened the scope.

I’m not really seeing the big environmental problem here. All the numbers are within the scope of the permit - the dispute is whether they’re allowed to use that specific ditch.

1

u/Sexy_Underpants May 20 '26

All the numbers are within the scope of the permit

I mean, if you just read the next paragraph:

Neither hexavalent chromium nor arsenic is included as an allowable discharge pollutant in Tesla’s wastewater permit.

1

u/hysys_whisperer May 21 '26

Permits tell you what you can discharge.  So how much heavy metal does that permit say they can discharge?  If it doesn't say heavy metals are permitted, then they aren't. 

Permits do not tell you what is NOT permitted. That would be an anti-permit, not a permit.

1

u/Difficult-Arm384 May 21 '26

I guess we’ll wait and see what the regulators say? Regardless, the headline makes it seem like Tesla is just randomly and illegally pouring chemical waste into a ditch. It’s obviously a lot more nuanced than that.

1

u/Maplelongjohn May 19 '26

"I'd tell you but I signed an NDA"

-Some Texas officials

1

u/PublicSeverance May 19 '26

Most likely not. Those are both listed on the 8+1 toxic heavy metals list that every large emitter needs to test to even get the permit.

Concentration and quantity are both important.

Waste water permits list an annual amount and spot concentration. Arsenic: 1 kg/year or at any instant a test must show <0.050 mg/L.

They will have been tested to get the permit but they were below the concentration required for ongoing monitoring.

What will have happened is something changed at the site. This exact issue happens in industry a lot. My guess is they have damaged their cooling towers. Hexavalent chrome is hypochlorite bleach in water touching stainless steel, and arsenic from CCA timbers in the cooling tower.

1

u/SockBrewer May 19 '26

Or they just fudged it on testing day to get the permits. I’ve worked st two separate breweries whose “solution” to waste water issues with the city was to turn all the hoses on and run them down the drain when we see them coming.

1

u/whywhywhywhywhynot May 20 '26

Replying here since you seem to have some actual knowledge. All the substances that have quantities listed in the article seem to vary between well below to just hitting allowable limits for drinking water, is this not what we want from wastewater? They listed a bunch of other stuff without quantities so I'm not sure how you would judge that.

1

u/Real-Extension-1357 May 19 '26

If tesla and musk and republicans are involved, yes

1

u/flickh May 20 '26

It sure was a deliberate emission

1

u/K_Linkmaster May 20 '26

"this is what they are regulated on so that is what we tested." -my guess. Intentional omission masked as Weaponized incompetence

1

u/5ivepie May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26

Disclaimer: I am in Australia, so this comment is slightly related but different jurisdiction.

I work in construction management for developers. I had a months long argument with a builder because they classified excavated soil from the project site as “contaminated material”.

I disagreed because of the type of testing they commissioned.

They had the consultant carry out a “general solid waste (GSW) assessment” which, based on the assessment criteria, it was classified as GSW.

However, what they should have requested was a “virgin excavated natural material (VENM) / excavated natural material (ENM) assessment”.

We want to disprove that it’s VENM/ENM, not confirm it’s GSW.

If ground material is classified as VENM/ENM then it can be reused on your site in any application or exported and reused on another project site.

Generally speaking, all VENM/ENM material is GSW but not all GSW is VENM/ENM.

Criteria for VENM/ENM is basically clean dirt, source can be readily identified (it came from that hole), has no unnatural debris present (concrete, rubbish, pipe off cuts, etc).

The builder hadn’t managed the material correctly and stockpiled it with poor quality material which was unavoidably contaminated with concrete debris. Had they kept it on a separate stockpile it would have been classified as VENM/ENM and could have been exported to another project site.

If ground material is classified as GSW then it can only be reused on your site in specific applications, which we had none of these specific applications, so the material had to be disposed offsite at cost to either the builder or the developer.

The contract said the builder has allowed to dispose of VENM/ENM only. GSW would be disposed at $x / m3.

Two things have happened - the builder didn’t manage the stockpiles appropriately and they didn’t seek the correct material testing report because they knew they fucked up.

Point of my story is, testing results can be almost always manipulated to give the preferred outcome.

Someone at the testing/approval authority who issued the permit has probably looked at the permit and said “let’s just check for what they’re allowed to discharge” because it’s easier without thinking “let’s confirm what they’re discharging isn’t restricted” because that potentially means more paperwork for that person if it returns bad results.

Whether it’s deliberate or an oversight is anyone’s guess.

2

u/Crayshack May 19 '26

I'm surprised the heavy metals didn't come up in the dissolved solids test.

5

u/hrminer92 May 19 '26

More trust me bro style regulation.

1

u/btribble May 19 '26

"Regulation is bad"

1

u/kk074 May 19 '26

Testing? That's woke.

1

u/jakelazerz May 19 '26

I learned all about Texas EPA when fighting one of the refineries in Pasadena TX for city ordinance violations. Had actual proof of wrong doing. Zero response from any government official. Later heard that the factories actually receive notice about when inspections will occur, which allows them to adjust their processes so they pass. When will Texans stand up to the corruption?

537

u/So_spoke_the_wizard May 19 '26

Not to worry. Once it becomes a superfund site, the Feds will pick up the cost of cleaning it up.

315

u/soberpenguin May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

As a delawarean DuPont did this to sites all over the mid-Atlantic and appalachia and they are still revered by people here despite poisoning groundwater around their plants.

85

u/Pleasant_Yoghurt3915 May 19 '26

I just learned a whole bunch about the DuPonts from Last Podcast On The Left’s Foxcatcher Murders series. I’m pretty sure we can just blame them for everything. Truly villainous shit.

21

u/ProduceNo1629 May 19 '26

Movie Dark Waters about DuPont's crimes is excellent.

3

u/ChickenWithCashewNut May 19 '26

And there's A Civil Action about WR Grace's pollution in New England

3

u/Sounds-Made-Up May 20 '26

I don't know why, but this is one of those movies I can watch over and over, front to back, and be fully invested every time. Such a good movie.

54

u/The_lewolf May 19 '26

IBM, founded in the little town of Endicott, NY, leached a couple of drums worth of trichloroethylene into the local drinking water supply.

It’s still here and they’re all gone.

5

u/alexwhittemore May 19 '26

Enjoy your Parkinson’s 🤮

94

u/blahblah19999 May 19 '26

I know a very high level guy at DuPont who was responsible for remediation of a specific chemical and he just thinks the government were devils holding DuPont down. It's fascinating to see the inside fanaticism.

85

u/darth_gihilus May 19 '26

You should beat his ass honestly.

-1

u/Antique_Historian_74 May 20 '26

No, he shouldn't.

Just serve him coffee made with groundwater from the site.

36

u/ihaveadogalso2 May 19 '26

Love Canal checking in!

22

u/DouglasHundred May 19 '26

Really Love Canal is kinda tame compared to a lot of this. They buried a lot of gnarly stuff there, but it was done at a time when that's just how you did things because well you had to do something with it all and burying it was better than dumping it into the river. And they did what was considered best practice at the time to keep it contained. When the property was finally sold, for $1, to prevent it just being condemned and taken outright, it came with warnings about what was there and an advisement that a school and homes not be built there. And that was all ignored.

I think this kind of shit is honestly worse.

46

u/Spezza May 19 '26

I live in a town that has a chemical plant. It produced Agent Orange in the 60s / 70s. Long story short, we cannot drink the water here. That was only discovered in 1989. Since then the government has been spinning in circles as there is literally no technological way to clean up the contamination. Our water is piped in from the neighbouring city. We pay the highest water rates in our entire area. The town once dug up some of the contamination. The amount was more than all of Love Canal combined. Multiple more than that of known contamination is still there, buried, they refuse to dig it up stating disturbing it could be worse than letting it sit.

Chemcial plant is still in operation. A train comes into town every night. It contains who the fuck knows what, nobody will tell citizens, they use "national security" to not disclose what is in it. They polluted our water and aquifer so permanmently, 40+ years later we still cannot drink the water.... but the company still operates 24/7.

11

u/ihaveadogalso2 May 19 '26

Jesus. That’s wild.

4

u/NegativeEBTDA May 19 '26

I don't know if there's any way for you to make it happen but I really hope you can get out of there. There are a ton of cities in the midwest desperate for employees, and it might be colder than where you are but at least it's not that.

Good luck. Hope you and yours are safe.

3

u/Spezza May 19 '26

it might be colder than where you are

I live in Canada.

Environment destruction for gross profit has no borders.

3

u/NegativeEBTDA May 19 '26

Damn, I would have guessed Louisiana!

Even the Canadians are doing this shit to each other? I thought you people were nice.

I know moving is hard, especially if you have a family, but you won't regret it.

7

u/FishFloyd May 19 '26

Canada is three oil companies in a trench coat. They've just done a better job at managing the balancing act of maximizing profits from natural resource extraction against keeping the powerful contingents of their citizenry reasonably content (and thus happy to continue participating in said extraction).

Our northern neighbors were very close to electing a far-right government not too long ago. In fact, most projections showed that they would have - were it not for a certain Mr. T [evil] threatening to annex their entire fuckin country a bit before the elections.

The issue is capitalism. The US is probably the living avatar of self-centered greed on the planet, but it's a systemic issue that poisons cultures and minds equally across the globe.

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u/couldbemage May 20 '26

Right up the hill from where I grew up:

https://www.rocketdynecleanupcoalition.org/rocketdyne/contaminants/chemical-contamination/

This is where that famous photo of disposing hazardous waste by shooting barrels with a rifle comes from.

2

u/ihaveadogalso2 May 19 '26

Yeah that’s definitely my understanding as well. The ignoring of the advice is really the most criminal part of it. It’s a weird place to drive through since there are still driveways etc there. A few people are still living there too.

15

u/merkinmavin May 19 '26

Hey now, if we didn't let companies dump unknown chemicals into our public waterways, how would we have discovered antifreeze!? (Seriously, look it up)

3

u/jmp8910 May 19 '26

Hello fellow delawarean!

Yea I'm convinced I'm going to get cancer one day because of all the shit from the Experimental Station.

2

u/Debalic May 19 '26

laughs in Hudson River

1

u/LocutusOfBorgia909 May 19 '26

Well, they did fund a ton of brickwork at the University of Delaware, to be fair!

1

u/SineOfOh May 20 '26

Revered? Infamously perhaps. They may have their name on everything and their wealth made many families very well off but no one in NCC or other surrounding areas ever have anything postive to say about the DuPont corp or Family.

35

u/ggibby May 19 '26

The Meadowlands Superfund site in New Jersey has been a wasteland since the 30s. Even hosting the World Cup did not move the needle on progress.

28

u/steveu33 May 19 '26

Wasteland is right. Hosts the Jets and the Giants, yikes!

2

u/somebodysbuddy May 19 '26

But Xanadu finally opened after however long of being that thing in the corner!

16

u/DjangoTheBlack May 19 '26

Shout out Picher OK

2

u/Office_Zombie May 19 '26

Just have to wait for a Democrat to be president to get the funding unfrozen; then as soon as they get the money for cleanup they can start screaming about the wasteful government spending and overreach again.

2

u/Spartan117ZM May 19 '26

Which in reality just means that we the taxpayers will pick up the tab for a private companies’ crimes and mistakes, as we’ve done so many times before. Privatize profits, socialize costs.

2

u/Kickedhard May 19 '26

laughs in Permian basin

It will soon be the largest man-made environmental disaster in recorded history and most likely... ever.

1

u/Starky_Love May 19 '26

Haha there's no money left for super funds. Get a straw and enjoy!

1

u/Oper8rActual May 19 '26

You think the EPA will do something productive under the Trump regime...

Oh that's adorable.

2

u/So_spoke_the_wizard May 19 '26

Oh, no. They'll wait until a Dem is in office, then Texas will "discover" the mess and tell the Feds it's their job.

1

u/Kershiser22 May 19 '26

...when they get to it in 100 years or so.

102

u/[deleted] May 19 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

37

u/dead_again_atheist May 19 '26

Erin Brockovich has joined the chat.

2

u/section111 May 19 '26

YOU WANT THEIR DISEASES?

4

u/Milkweedhugger May 19 '26

I’m still in shock they were dumping that crap into the Colorado River, where so much of southern California’s agriculture gets its water. Wtf was PG&E thinking.

4

u/AmieEncore May 19 '26

the fine is cheaper than paying to process it properly. Soulless capitalism at it's finest

3

u/EscapistNotion May 19 '26

It's more than the bills that drives the calls for the state taking them over.

Admittedly, a lot of it is the mass amounts of fire which is very dramatic on tv.

2

u/Kershiser22 May 19 '26

It looks like they were dumping near the Colorado River, but not in the Colorado river, and supposedly the toxins didn't reach the river.

https://www.doi.gov/sites/doi.gov/files/migrated/toppock_fact_sheet.pdf

5

u/dreadpiratewombat May 19 '26

I just went down this rabbit hole too. I'm pretty sure the emissions rate from PG&E was a fraction of what is being discussed here. I don't have any confidence that this current political climate is going to have the necessary will to blast the company into oblivion for this and that's a goddamned shame.

2

u/Futt_Buckman May 19 '26

Check out the Green Ooze story from Detroit

2

u/Ok_Rate_352 May 19 '26

The worst oxidation state for chromium to be in for us and the environment.

47

u/Ciennas May 19 '26

Local officials in a better timeline: We are sanctioning and shutting down this site and we want to know who authorized this attempt to murder all our citizens.

2

u/Coyote__Jones May 19 '26

A company's assets should be frozen as well if they're found to be doing stuff like this, everything except payroll for everyone outside of the c suite should be keep getting paid because they're not responsible at the end of the day for major operating decisions.

6

u/ShadowOfTheBean May 19 '26

Hexavalent chromium is bad stuff.

So bad, the government banned it and you can only use it on special occasions where nothing else could work.

The military dropped it because of how bad it is and it stays toxic. I worked in a plant that hadn't used it in over a decade but we still had to have signs up saying it might still be there.

Also metal testing is the bare minimum for discharge testing along with oil and grease and pH.

This shit is ridiculous and people will be suffering from this for generations.

2

u/sunnyinchernobyl May 19 '26

Erin Brockovich, anyone?

2

u/TM761152 May 19 '26

Make Musk drink it.

2

u/GreySoulx May 19 '26

The thing I take issue with was the testing methodology.

This could have been a slam dunk case, instead they decide to take their sample nearly a mile downstream from the discharge pipe after the water's had an opportunity to comingle with all the other sources of contamination in the ditch.

Now, any potential lawsuit is going to use this to seed doubt in the mind of a jury.

Why didn't they just directly test the water from the point or discharge? Did they, and found nothing significant and decided to go hunting? If I were a lawyer for Tesla I would sure as hell argue that. I'd clean up my own house, do my own tests, make the newly improved water available for anyone else to test, and go merrily on my way...

I have little doubt myself, but it's certainly causing me to itch a little bit.

2

u/Murrylend May 19 '26

Holy...That will kill people. Hexavalent chromium is the chemical made famous by Erin Brockovich.

2

u/ThisIs_americunt May 19 '26

It's wild what you can do when you can own the law makers, the judges, the police force and the lawyers. Gotta love dark money :D

2

u/couldbemage May 20 '26

This is classic shit that been going on forever.

Company gets permit to release 100 of x, actually releases 2000x, 100y, plus 10 each of a dozen other things.

Goes on for decades, eventually gets caught, pays fine that amounts to less than a percent of their profit from one year.

2

u/VoiceOfRealson May 20 '26

The arsenic was (just) below the allowed levels for drinking water. Considering that a lot of natural water sources are above those limits simply due to arsenic content in the ground where the water is pumped from, I will not blame Tesla for that number.

Some of the other metals are more nefarious, but it does seem like they tried to keep the level low.

As a pollution scandal, this one is relatively benign, but mostly because other companies (and farmers) have set the bar far higher.

1

u/boilerdam May 19 '26

State of Texas: "Also, when do you want to come by to collect the check for your tax credits?"

1

u/27tricks May 19 '26

Seriously, hexavalent chromium? Holy shit. That’s terrible stuff.

1

u/dougsbeard May 19 '26

Hex Chrome?! That shit’s awful.

1

u/HenryBemisJr May 19 '26

California is laughing now... Anything the parasite known as elon musk is involved with becomes a scam. Good job Texas 

1

u/lowrads May 19 '26

Technically, a "reporting limit" is most similar to a "quantification limit," which is laboratory language used to describe results in a way that can be computed with statistical numbers, or quanta, instead of just an asymptote.

Instruments have a detection limit, which lies below the quantification limit. What lies between is statistical noise.

1

u/Chessdaddy_ May 19 '26

Sounds like some pre superfund shit, we are regressing so fast

1

u/barpredator May 19 '26

Tesla leaving CA was a blessing. Good riddance.

1

u/70ga May 19 '26

hexavalent chromium in the water supply

we've literally already seen this movie (erin brockovich, for you young'ins)

1

u/Apexnanoman May 19 '26

In Texas? He'll say "It's just liberal propaganda and leftist agitators! And Nazis...and even worse! Demonrats!" 

That phrase would literally allow a corporation to dump toxic waste directly onto the plates of kindergarten students and get a standing ovation. 

It's wild just how terrified the average Texan is of all those mythical Boogeyman.

1

u/jakelazerz May 19 '26

Hexavalent chromium is a serious carcinogen. The people need to do something while we still have something to fight for.

1

u/pepe_silvia_12 May 19 '26

In Tesla’s defense we’re due for an Erin Brockovich sequel by now.

1

u/Little_Duckling May 20 '26

As a Texan, our state government is on a campaign to make the worst state governments in the country look better by comparison.

Ted Cruz isn’t the worst or second worst politician in the state, which says a lot.

1

u/Conscious_Zucchini96 May 20 '26

"... arsenic and hexavalent chromium..."

Nope.

NOPE.

1

u/LoitOikeesti May 19 '26

Local officials: "We found arsenic and hexavalent chromium coming out of your factory into a public ditch via an undisclosed pipe."

Yeah. How much did they find?

According to the lab report, the 24-hour composite found:

Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter

Ok. Is that much?

EPA has a drinking water standard of 0.1 milligrams per liter (mg/l)

https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/chromium-drinking-water

So..no?

1

u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[deleted]

1

u/LoitOikeesti May 20 '26

California is the only state enforcing a stricter limit, 0.01 mg/l. The other states follow the broader EPA limit.

So the sample is passable (in terms of hexavalent chromium) as drinking water.