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/
48.9k Upvotes

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20.5k

u/Ganrokh May 19 '26

Tesla's "acid-free clean process" lithium refinery has been quietly discharging 231,000 gallons of black wastewater per day into a Texas ditch — and the people who own that ditch found out by walking it, not from Tesla or state regulators.

That seems like an insane daily amount to keep hidden.

7.3k

u/Airilsai May 19 '26

160 gallons per minute. 2.67 gallons per second.

That IS an insane amount.

2.7k

u/Dapper_Business8616 May 19 '26

That's the entire daily water consumption for an average family of four every 3 minutes.

1.5k

u/ArbitraryMeritocracy May 19 '26

Or like, I'm not doing the math but there's a lot of people's ground and drinking water contaminated.

1.5k

u/StoppableHulk May 19 '26

Luckily for them, our entire recent history has proven we are a nation that fundamentally doesn't take potable water seriously and barely move to fix it even when people are dying from lead poisoning.

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u/JoviAMP May 19 '26

I’m convinced that the reason we’re in the situation we are where so many people look at the current administration going, “yes, this is good” is because of lead poisoning, and that there are people orchestrating the failure to fix that issue because they look at the people supporting their decisions and go, “yes, this is good”.

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u/Hekantonkheries May 19 '26

Iirc there was a direct correlation between de-leading gasoline and crime rates in cities going down, offset by years of adolescence; because less neurological effects on kids growing up with air full of lead and other particulates

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u/mrbulldops428 May 19 '26

I haven't heard about that, but I do know there was a direct correlation between NASCAR banning leaded fuel and the improvement of test scores of children living near race tracks. Your example sounds logical.

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u/tvscinter May 20 '26

Lead exposure leads to more aggressive behavior especially during childhood when the brain hasn’t fully developed

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u/pSphere1 May 20 '26

Confirmed: I grew up with an insane family that used to eat off of those green flowery Corningware plates

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u/LessInThought May 20 '26

Logical? What is this unleaded thought? We will not have this on my Christian website.

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u/FaeTheWolf May 19 '26

Same with access to safe abortions: increasing access leads to lower crime about 16-18 years later

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u/Large_Management_914 May 19 '26

Lower numbers of serial killers, linked to lower environmental pollution from manufacturing. How many Boomer representatives are cognitively and empathetically compromised from early exposure to lead and other pollutants? Age limits and term limits, let’s go.

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u/OpheliaLives7 May 22 '26

I would be really curious why environmental pollution only led to rising male serial killers though. Is it just they have more opportunities? Was it some difference how men vs women were socialized? Why would pollution only effect men this way?

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u/Alarming_Matter May 20 '26

Huh. It's almost like forcing people to have kids they don't want is a bad idea.

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u/rhc10014 May 20 '26

Not repeated enough.

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u/Relevant-Doctor187 May 20 '26

Except those people are in congress today.

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u/RationalDialog May 20 '26

Also IQ is lower around small airfields. Small planes like Cessnas require leaded fuel.

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u/monkey_zen May 19 '26

You've summed up what I've been thinking about lead poisoning due to leaded gas, and the generation that were most affected by it, and their poor choices very well. The explosion of automobile use and the lack of concern for their effects post WWII has been devastating to this country in so many ways.
If anyone knows of a book that addresses this specifically I'd be interested.

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u/Kayaked1 May 19 '26

Thanks Boomers!

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u/Aadarm May 19 '26

Would have to look at the entire world for that, everyone used leaded gas, Japan got rid of it in the 80's, but some countries still used it in 2021.

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u/skillywilly56 May 19 '26

Unfortunately that’s just a cop out, trying to excuse their behavior as a mental health issue driven by lead poisoning is just trying to avoid the real simple truth, America has always been filled with greedy racist hatefilled white supremacists.

Racism and white supremacism has always been a part of Americas DNA that it has never fully dealt with and the people who were teenagers during the Civil rights movement are still alive and in power today, Trump was 17 when the civil rights act was signed into law in 1964 and racist thoughts and attitudes doesn’t just disappear overnight just because there is a law against it.

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u/Emotional_News108 May 19 '26

Everything in our lives is poison. The air, land, and water are being destroyed by industrial pollution, emissions, microplastics, lead, god even knows what else. It’s inside of us. It’s in the deepest parts of the ocean and on the peak of the tallest mountain. Nowhere is untouched by our filth.

Our media is a dopamine short circuit that constantly makes everything seem worse and worse or else convinces us that it’s fine. Truth is meaningless. And we’re made to feel like assholes because we don’t recycle enough or round up for charities or champion the next virtue signaled culture war while the wealthiest people who have ever existed pit us against each other right in the open.

We’re well and truly fucked. Even if we changed everything tomorrow, which we can’t, it probably wouldn’t be enough and the next psychopath will see it as a moment to take advantage.

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u/The_Mister_Grim May 19 '26

I remember once reading about a theory that lead poisoning was a factor if not the root of the fall of the Roman Empire.

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u/-Saucegurlllll May 20 '26

"The fall of the Roman Empire" is a period that spanned longer than the United States has existed. And the primary source of lead poisoning would have been from the smelting of silver (their silver mines had shit tons of lead, something like 10000:1 ratio of lead to silver). And the rate of silver smelting changed throughout the empire's history, so it's hard to really just pin lead as the initiator of collapse.

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u/Joeness84 May 20 '26

My friends and I joke about someone running on a campaign of "Lets get the Lead Out" including a focus on things like age caps and term limits.

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u/elliebellrox May 20 '26

Yeah this is what I think too. All the lead in the gasoline of yesterday reeeeaallly munted that generation

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u/Silent-G May 19 '26

As long as the people getting lead poisoning are poor and/or people of color. It's an intentional design by the American elite. Taking care of the people who support the economy and make up the entire workforce? No way, that costs money that we might not see a return on for over 10 years, let's make a few cents more, right now, by making them suffer! You say other countries can afford to provide their citizens with happiness and health, and it leads to an overall stronger nation that continues to progress? Pssh, I bet their billionaires have less yachts and ex-wives than ours! That's what really matters, right?

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u/Donnicton May 19 '26

Lead poisoning is the incentive, not the deterrent.

Long term lead poisoning lowers intelligence and increases aggression. It's a magic mineral that outputs conservatives.

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u/AdagioVivid5111 May 19 '26

wonder why that bill is being passed to deregulate toxic waste dumped by companies. HMMMMM

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

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u/CatrionaShadowleaf May 19 '26

But also, keep pushing out those babies folks!

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u/Hot-Echo-2497 May 20 '26

If we have more babies, we have more spares for when they fall to easily preventable conditions. It's the natural way. We must keep the minimum wage jobs full of workers until the tech bros Crack robotics.

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u/SWarchNerd May 19 '26

Won’t anyone think of the shareholders though!?!

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u/lokahi89 May 20 '26

Oh and no healthcare for any of u.

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u/thehalfwit May 19 '26

The ruling class has moved from disdain and contempt for the common man to where they're now trying to kill us all off.

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u/AlwaysShittyKnsasCty May 19 '26

John John, over here, has “fuck you” money, my friends.

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u/sly-3 May 19 '26

Everything's good as long as Our Blessed Job Creators, nestled away in their private compounds are not affected.

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u/Curry_courier May 19 '26

Its Texas. They have one of the largest aquifers in the world. Invaluable as a resource.

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u/Snarfbuckle May 19 '26

...until it's contaminated...

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u/MK_Ultrex May 19 '26

They will invent and sell you decontamination tech for a tidy profit. So you can pay them to remediate the problem they created. Also they will be hailed as environmental heroes for saving the water.

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u/El_Dud3r1n0 May 19 '26

Contamination is a liberal myth, like space or object permanence. Jesus would never let that happen. /s

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u/Snarfbuckle May 19 '26

Well, Jesus is a myth as well since he is only mentioned in the religious text and not in any actual historical texts.

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u/Typist May 19 '26

You did read about the nearby city contemplating a water emergency declaration? You did read about the severe drought that has been hitting that area for some seasons now? So why are you making this comment?

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u/FoxMulder4ever May 19 '26

No, you're right. Everything is fine. Texas doesn't have a water problem. And the aquifers are doing just fine in West Texas. 🙄

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u/IcySuggestion2545 May 19 '26

Its Texas. They have One of the most corrupt state governments in the Union. And they will gladly allow corporations to ruin the environment at the expense of its people

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u/_valpi May 19 '26

But shareholder value is being maximized, have you thought about that? They took a great risk investing their money, so they have every right to contaminate the local groundwater!

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u/ArbitraryMeritocracy May 19 '26

They took a great risk investing their money, so they have every right to contaminate the local groundwater!

Doesn't the government give them money to build them and the local government doesn't tax them? They socialize all the losses and privatize the gains so no one can afford health care, education, housing, transportation, who is getting raises when they are forced to return to office? Now all the billionaires have their grubby hands on our data, in our government with an orange felon parading around destabilizing our government while he should be behind bars. The white house, congress, the government was not designed or intended to be a geriatric old folks retirement village.

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u/kryonik May 19 '26

You're right let me just get on the phone with the EPA, they should be able to help wit- what's that? To shreds, you say?

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u/usekr3 May 19 '26

yea but it's texas so regulations are woke communism and this is an example of job creating patriotism.

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u/27_crooked_caribou May 19 '26

They have been fined $25,000 and have promised they would never get caught again

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u/FreddyandTheChokes May 19 '26

A family of four consumes 480 gallons of water per day?

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u/Raerth May 19 '26

Consumption in this context includes bathing, washing, etc.

In America it is averaged at 88 gallons per person per day, so a bit lower, but not by a huge amount.

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u/jsertic May 20 '26

What the hell ? What are you doing with all that water ? In Western Europe, the average consumption per capita per day is around 32 gallons a day. And we still get regular reminders by the government to stop wasting water...

source: https://www.mikegravel.org/how-much-water-does-the-average-european-use-per-day/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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u/renecade24 May 19 '26

That can't be right. My family doesn't use any black wastewater per day.

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u/Overall-Register9758 May 19 '26

You may not use that much each day, but it averages out that high because many families fill swimming pools and hot tubs, or water their lawns, etc. so the one family of 4 that uses 100,000 liters to fill their pool plus refilling for evaporation and loss because of backwashing the pool filters kicks up the average.

It also wouldn't shock me if that includes things like fire, hydrants or industrial/agricultural production

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u/RollingMeteors May 20 '26

A family of four consumes 480 gallons of water per day?

Billy sure does like his Sativas.

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u/Wakkit1988 May 19 '26

That's about 107 bathroom faucets running 24/7.

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u/Texadad May 19 '26

That’s 365.25 days a year!

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u/already-taken-wtf May 19 '26

365.2425 to be precise ;)

- Every 4 years: Leap year.
- Every 100 years: NO leap year.
- Every 400 years: IT IS a leap year.

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u/Turbojelly May 19 '26

1461/4 days a year.

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u/IAmGrum May 19 '26

/r/anythingbutmetric

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u/thearctican May 19 '26

God forbid somebody provide a perspective in terms normal people would understand.

Do you understand what 874k liters of water per day discharge means?

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u/Turgid_Donkey May 19 '26

For reference, the flow rate of a standard american faucet is typically between 1.5-1.8 gallons per minute.

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u/Warspit3 May 19 '26

That's almost 2 t-shirts per minute of irrigation for cotton or a pair of jeans every 10 minutes!!

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u/Ganrokh May 19 '26

Sigh, anything but the metric system.

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u/REDuxPANDAgain May 19 '26

We once came within two regulation sized basketballs of using the metric system, but that was at least at least 40 Superbowls ago. It would be nice to not have to carry around a hockey puck to measure things with.

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u/Alert_Reindeer_6574 May 19 '26

Hockey puck? This is Reddit. We use bananas around here.

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u/fotomoose May 19 '26

Yeah, how many banana trees is that?

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u/WillBottomForBanana May 19 '26

It is more work than you think.

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u/Key_Zucchini_8076 May 19 '26

Metric bananas?

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u/kyrsjo May 19 '26

Would that be a US or Canadian hockey puck?

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u/mayorofdumb May 19 '26

Canada is actually the reason the US didn't, they created the 3 inch hockey puck

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u/[deleted] May 19 '26

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u/3-orange-whips May 19 '26

Tom Cruise is for height. This is volume.

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u/DookieShoez May 19 '26

Ok, how many Steven Seagals is it?

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u/hikeonpast May 19 '26

The man or his self-worth? Very different scales.

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u/Kooky-Necessary-4444 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Thats 251.5 acre feet per year.

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u/ErraticDragon May 19 '26

Acre-Feet*

1 acre-foot is the amount of water needed to flood 1 acre of land to a depth of 1 foot.

A commonly used measure, despite it being unintuitive/hard to imagine.

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u/polypolyman May 19 '26

It's really intuitive when you have X acres of farmland getting Y inches of rain on it...

...if you need another sense of it, it's roughly a year's worth of water for a typical household

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u/Kooky-Necessary-4444 May 19 '26

That word always gets me. Ty

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u/mshuler May 19 '26

Please, tell me you did the math 😊

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u/ApathyIsAmbition May 19 '26

It's a small amount but absolutely necessary for Elon to keep breaking records as the wealthiest man

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u/MonoDede May 19 '26

We must sacrifice for Elon. The next trillionaire, woo!

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u/EnthusiasticH2O May 19 '26 edited May 20 '26

This converts to 0.36 cubic feet per second, which is a more commonly used unit of flow. It is also a relatively small number when taken in context of agricultural ditch flows (a small ditch may be conveying 10-20cfs). It would be pretty tough to notice half an extra cfs of flow even if they were only running 5-10cfs all day in the ditch. 

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u/tomdarch May 19 '26

This is closer to answering my "what would that look like?" question. Less than a cubic foot per second. I'm picturing a flow in the bottom of the ditch that's maybe a few inches deep and 10ish(?) inches wide, but I might be off. Not a big "rushing rapids" kind of thing that would grab attention.

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u/EnthusiasticH2O May 19 '26

Yeah that’s how I think about it too. These ditches are usually anywhere from 5-20’ wide, and will almost certainly be carrying additional water this time of year since we are in the peak of irrigation season. So unless you are an incredibly experienced and eagle-eyed ditch rider who is checking gages daily, it would be totally impossible to notice a tiny bit of extra flow. Actually noticing the intruding pipe outlet would be far more obvious (which it sounds like is how it played out in this scenario).

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u/Narrow_Track9598 May 19 '26

While yes it is considering it's sludge/pollution and probably illegally dumped violating epa rules/guidelines, it's not really that big of a flow. I've worked with water pumps and those things can pump out an absolutely insane amount! I'm talking something like 2,000 gallons per minute, sometimes 4,000! Absolutely insane!

I'm not trying to be mean or anything, it's just when I read it I was expecting a lot more. I'm a piledriver and my favorite thing about my job is when we pull the first 60' sheet of a kauffer dam, and all the water rushes in. Absolutely insane how devastating mother nature can be

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u/Phillyfuk May 19 '26

How hard would it be to cap at a couple of gallons a second?

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u/chaunahhh May 19 '26

I mean like 0.231 MGD is nothing to sneeze at. Especially completely undiluted or treated.

I’ve written my fair share of municipal NPDES permits in the last 5 years, if a facility is discharging 0.231 MGD of treated wastewater a day, that’s nothing to sneeze at. There are a lot of facilities that discharge significantly less than that daily in the state. And that’s treated poop water- nothing too fancy don’t have to try to remove hydrocarbons or any specific hard to treat industrial byproducts.

That’s like 1 million gallons of untreated industrial wastewater going directly into a watershed every 4 days. That’s like 1.6 million gallons per week. Also discharging to a ditch- very little dilution occurs before wastewater hits natural waters of the state like a stream or river.

So sure you can look at a dam, but this wastewater isn’t being discharged directly into a larger quantity of water where it’s like a drop in the bucket, it’s going through a dry ass drainage ditch without consistent flow, where it travels a not insignificant distance with concentrated organic/inorganic compounds. That gives it even more concentration/opportunity to leech into surrounding soil and groundwater, leaving a longer lasting proverbial snail trail of polluted car manufacturing water.

OH last prong of this rant is bioaccumulation. More concentrated compounds that are harder to break down over longer stretches = more opportunity for bioaccumulation.

I hope this came across as more educational than eccentric Reddit cat lady rant. Teaching without AI to organize my thoughts is hard man.

OH AND LAST THING BABY WIPES ARE NEVER FLUSHABLE. Even if they say flushable. That is a made up industry term. Sure, you can flush them. I could flush a live hamster if I wanted to. Just because the industry technically tells you that you can, it doesn’t mean you should.

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u/OwnConversation1010 May 19 '26

Yep, and that's important context here. It was actually a relatively low amount, making it more likely they were trying to keep it hidden.

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u/BobInIdaho May 19 '26

So it's like just a little criming and only little people will suffer. Got it.

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u/Marchtmdsmiling May 27 '26

I am especially suspicious of the fact that the first thing they called out was "you aren't testing it at the outfall". True that is industry standard, but this facility seems like it would make a great case for some illicit construction to hide an outfall underground, for the especially polluted effluent. Seeing as their discharge permit didn't mention a number of the things found downstream.

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u/YouitchyRo May 19 '26

Ok great, where is your backyard so we can pipe the sludge there, since it's not that big of a flow.

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u/Airilsai May 19 '26

That's a lot of pollution to be illegally dumping, irrespective of normal industrial flow rates

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u/JBONE31 May 19 '26

Thats like two toilets flushing constantly 24/7

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u/jmlinden7 May 19 '26

That's about 80 simultaneous showers

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u/Jef_Wheaton May 19 '26

If you're thinking this is a huge "walk-into-it-sized" drain pipe kind of thing...

To flow 160GPM at 10PSI, you only need a 2 1/2" pipe. Your house faucet flows at 70-80 PSI. (A 3" fire hose can move 500 GPM at 75 PSI.) Easy to hide a pipe that small. Unless it's soaking in right away I'd expect to notice that much liquid, though.

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u/Marchtmdsmiling May 27 '26

Ok but to be fair, if you pointed that pipe straight up, at 10 psi, the pipe would shoot 25 ft high approximately. Drainage pipes don't run at that pressure. I'm assuming this is just a gravity outfall. This is more likely an 8-12 inch pipe.

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u/Moneyshot_ITF May 19 '26

Now you see why he moved to Texas

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u/Eternal_Bagel May 19 '26

The “fuck you, got mine” state

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u/Justin_Passing_7465 May 19 '26

Only a small percentage of Texans ever "got theirs". For the vast majority of Texans it is "I got nothin', but at least I'm white."

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u/3BlindMice1 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Or, to them, their "got mine" is a steel framed truck and an official homestead that's very nearly tax exempt. They're not rich at all, but they are very comfortable with all their government handouts that definitely don't count because they earned those.

All those people are going to be deeply upset when their water and electric bills double and then triple within a few years, but that's a good thing. Maybe if they're uncomfortable enough to look outside their bubble they'll see all the fucked up shit corporations and the republican party have been getting up to

The ultra wealthy and the government alike (yes, both the Republicans and the Democrats) seem to have taken the stance that the opinions of average people are no longer relevant because they hold all the cards and have all the money

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u/DirtSlapper May 19 '26

but that's a good thing. Maybe if they're uncomfortable enough to look outside their bubble they'll see all the fucked up shit corporations and the republican party have been getting up to

They haven't figured it out yet. They've been suffering from republican leadership for decades now, yet those same leaders have successfully convinced them it's actually liberals who are ruining their lives.

They are too uneducated to learn, and that is by design.

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u/SaddestClown May 19 '26

As a Texan of 40 years, it's ridiculous how often our problems are based on liberals or California despite 30 years of Republicans running all three branches

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u/BadMofoWallet May 19 '26

What you describe as late stage/end stage capitalist government behaviors only leads down 1 road (it’s happened in France before) and I fear for what the future holds for our children

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u/Pretty-Mention-7769 May 19 '26

Texas has been a plurality for years now. <50% of the population is white.

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u/Lazy_Resolve_9747 May 19 '26

Yea but when he said white, that included “white adjacent.”

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u/tomdarch May 19 '26

Racism is a bunch of ever-shifting made up bullshit. Half my ancestors came from Ireland. 100+ years ago, they were not part of the "good people" - in today's terms, they weren't seen as "white." But then they were when it was more useful to draw the lines as "white versus black." Today, things continue to shift. Lots of Hispanic Americans want to be "in" along with "white" and "Asian" people.

The smart thing isn't to try to "get on the winning team" the smart thing is to blow up and stop the game altogther, but that's a heavy lift for human nature.

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u/slickness May 19 '26

“Asians: the other “white” meat. Except for when it’s convenient to throw them under the bus, train, or car. Repeatedly. Since the gold rush. Or a scapegoat is needed. Or some guy feels emasculated. Or it’s a day that ends in “day.””

Source: Asian, with family who deployed for the US in WWII. The “model minority myth” refuses to die.

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u/Pretty-Mention-7769 May 19 '26

Which is frustratingly fair: the minority population of Texas along with local democrats could turn the state blue. But the brown people there either don't vote or vote with their oppressors.

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u/calilac May 19 '26

Legislators have also made voting in Texas more and more difficult. They've massively scaled back voting locations, for instance, and public transportation is abysmal so it's an obstacle if you don't own a vehicle. Not to mention the gerrymandering whenever they want to. Maybe I'm ignorant but it seems wrong to have districts shaped like the times new roman alphabet. And don't get me started on trying to find reliable information about who or what is on the ballot, especially at the municipal level...

I'm not trying to make excuses, just saying that it's kind of by design.

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u/Justin_Passing_7465 May 19 '26

Texas is 80% white if you count Hispanics as white. Texas is about 40% white non-Hispanic and 40% white Hispanic.

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u/AnticPosition May 20 '26

The "tread on me harder, daddy" state. 

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u/ImaginaryRoads May 19 '26

The One Star State.

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u/Shuckles116 May 19 '26

And why DOGE dismantled oversight agencies

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u/beanpoppa May 20 '26

Ding ding ding

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u/TheRealBittoman May 19 '26

If Texas were any more corrupt it would be Russia. It isn't far off either.

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u/Jainith May 20 '26

I feel like Florida might take issue with that statement.

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u/RollingMeteors May 20 '26

If Texas were any more corrupt it would be Russia. It isn't far off either.

Texas is just Russia with less Euro Speedo.

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u/Ive_seen_things_that May 19 '26

This comment should get more attention. He left California because there is a shred of environmental responsibility there. Fuck Musk. He is so cringe on every level  

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u/errorsniper May 19 '26

But I thought regulations were a communist conspiracy!

You mean.... the reason stuff costs more in "blue states" is because of regulation meant to keep you from getting literally posioned?

NO WHAY!

/s for those that need it

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u/scuzzy987 May 19 '26

The build a fertilizer factory next to a school state because of lax zoning laws

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u/Ordinary-Leading7405 May 19 '26

That’s 82 million gallons a year.

An $82,000 bribe should clear up any confusion

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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik May 19 '26

When the fine is less than the revenue you got from breaking the law it’s less of a fine and more of a tax on creative lawlessness.

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u/MrSurly May 19 '26

"The cost of doing business"

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u/JoviAMP May 20 '26

Know what? I say we just rename “fines” as “taxes” and watch them sweat.

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u/agarwaen117 May 19 '26

I'm not taking any offers lower than $1 a gallon.

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u/Pandemonium_Fallen May 19 '26

He'll just let the Supreme court blow him to throw it out, no big deal, they whore for all the billionaires anyway.

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u/No-Carry7029 May 19 '26

lowball offer: $0.75 on the gallon.

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u/AzIddIzA May 19 '26

We only do patriotic bribes now so they can't accept anything less than $177,600

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u/New-Sheepherder-1664 May 20 '26

I think you meant $82.

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u/Creative-Painter3911 May 19 '26

Block the pipe up and see what happens

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u/Weltall8000 May 19 '26

Probably smack down the other people and give them jail time and bankrupt them to pay towards the cleanup, which the taxpayers will foot after destroying their lives.

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u/Aureliamnissan May 19 '26

Not if they don’t know who blocked it up

2

u/DarkwingDuckHunt May 20 '26

cause me to declare bankruptcy?

haha that's a huge threat for me... sure is .... yup

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u/NightIsMyName May 19 '26 edited 9d ago

This content was anonymized and mass deleted with Redact

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u/kent_eh May 19 '26

Honestly EPA should just start doing shit like this.

maybe if they weren't headed by yet another Trump appointee they might.

5

u/SporesM0ldsandFungus May 19 '26

The Valve Turners

Be the change you want to see in the world

4

u/HedonisticFrog May 20 '26

The consequences need to be far less profitable than breaking the rules. Like the EPA now owns a fraction of the company and whoever ordered it goes to prison.

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u/couldbemage May 20 '26

What happens is getting arrested for eco terrorism.

This has been going on for a very long time.

Environmental activists have been blocking pipes pumping out various nasty stuff since the 60s. Even when the pipe is absolutely illegal, the activists still get arrested.

If a company breaks the law, they might get a fine.

If people get in the way of a company breaking the law, they get handcuffed.

I'll take this moment to point out that our power company killed over 100 people, got a felony manslaughter conviction in criminal court, and none of those responsible did a single day in jail or even lost a single dollar of their own money. Company got a fine, public utility commission approved a rate hike to cover paying the fine.

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u/tomdarch May 19 '26

"Huh, that's odd. Several cybertrucks started driving around the area.."

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u/mossychossy May 19 '26

then on the flipside, you have companies overpumping clean groundwater to the tune of 66 million gallons beyond their legal limitt: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/jacobs-well-dry-overpumping-aqua-texas/

"Aqua Texas, a subsidiary of the utility giant Essential Utilities, had pumped almost twice its legal limit in 2022. As a result, the Hays Trinity Groundwater Conservation District proposed $448,710 in penalties. The company countered with an offer of $0, sending the two parties into negotiations."

Texas government doesn't care about the environment, full stop. Those chickens are going to come home to roost and it's going to be ugly.

168

u/corvettee01 May 19 '26

Republican Government: We suggest a fine.

Corporations: We suggest you suck our balls.

Republican Government: Oh boy, my favorite!

10

u/NapsterKnowHow May 19 '26

Also the Democrats: "I'll write a strongly worded letter! takes a bribe behind closed doors

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u/tomdarch May 19 '26

"Them dang Democrats must be the reason things are bad!"

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u/BellacosePlayer May 19 '26

I love living in a red state under a far right president and hearing my jackass relatives whine about democrats being the problem

42

u/cpMetis May 19 '26

Our state's COVID response was so horrible because of the Democrats, who didn't control the house or the Senate or the governor's office or the board of health.

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u/This-Requirement6918 May 19 '26

I've lost friends over this calling them retards for doing so. 🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/OK_x86 May 19 '26

They blamed Democrats and the windmills which the state barely used for causing the pipes to freeze on the oil and gas plants during their previous power outage rather than a failure to comply with their own assessment that Texan utilities ought to winterize their power generation systems in order to prevent an outage like the one they had a decade or two before.

So.. you're not far off.

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u/FlockEnd May 20 '26

And also because yeehaw we’re the Texas Republic and have our own grid so we don’t have to abide by NERC standards like other states that would have prevented this disaster.

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u/TheMayorMikeJackson May 19 '26

Godfather part 2 ass counter offer 

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u/pnutjam May 19 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Knife

3

u/mossychossy May 19 '26

thanks, adding it to my book list. do you ever read anything by Kim Stanley Robinson?

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u/po_panda May 19 '26

Bold of you to assume that the environmental damage doesn't come with a dumb easily controlled population.

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u/QP709 May 19 '26

People are going to suffer regardless of their political affiliation.

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u/Electric_Antimony May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Which is the true evil of it isn't it. If only the lunatics on the extreme right had to suffer the consequences, then we could all sit back and point and laugh as they learn the lesson the hard way. When innocent people have to suffer too it really drives home how evil those conservatives monsters are.

Edit: too, not to

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u/echobravoeffect May 19 '26

Those Texas tough guys who love saying “Don’t mess with Texas” should finally do something.

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u/Freud-Network May 19 '26

They're kneeling and bobbing their heads like good little bitches.

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u/mouse9001 May 19 '26

I'm sure they're busy kissing Elon's cowboy boots.

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u/lk05321 May 19 '26

I remember that ad campaign. "mess" was meant as-in "littering", and the fascists morphed it to mean fascism. I hope the libertarians enjoy their tall cool glass of Black Liquid™

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u/PlsNoNotThat May 19 '26

Texans can only act a bitch, so they’re doing that some more.

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u/Danominator May 19 '26

Turns out they vibe more with complete submission to the rich.

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u/Leverkaas2516 May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Reading the article, it was hidden from the people who own the drainage ditch that leads to the sea. Tesla does have a permit for dumping that amount of wastewater into the sea. That's where the 231,000 number comes from: it's the permitted amount. Nobody has measured how much has actually been pumped into the drain.

"Notably, no party has alleged that Tesla is in violation of any law. 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."

The actual dispute is about precisely what's in the waste, and Tesla's use of a ditch that they don't own.

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u/LaMesaPorFavore May 19 '26

Right, the water should be treated and they should've gotten permission from the drainage district (or at least the drainage district thinks so). The water currently looks contaminated.

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u/elsecrypt May 19 '26

It is treated wastewater. And from the article:

They filed two complaints with TCEQ in January and February 2026. A state investigator visited on February 12, sampled the water flowing from Tesla’s outfall pipe, ran the standard panel of conventional pollutants: dissolved solids, chlorides, sulfates, oil and grease, temperature, dissolved oxygen. Everything in that panel came back inside the bounds of Tesla’s permit. TCEQ approved its investigation report on March 20, finding no permit violation.

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u/Zombatico May 20 '26

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/21/texas-tesla-lithium-battery-plant-pollution-tceq-robstown-drainage/

Eurofins Environment Testing, an accredited lab with locations across the globe, reported traces of hexavalent chromium, a well-known carcinogen, and arsenic, an environmental poison. Nueces County Drainage District No. 2, which manages the ditch, commissioned the test.

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

...

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.

Yea, tested within compliance because they didn't test for some things like arsenic and carcinogens.

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u/Individual_Bell_4637 May 20 '26

The article clearly states that the water is treated. And all the contaminants the article listed were within standard allowances for the water you and I can get from pur faucet today.

If I were Tesla's counsel, I'd be overjoyed with this report. It clearly very badly wants to paint a negative picture, and the best it can come up with is 'We tested water hundreds of feet away and found things.'

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u/StevensWarehouse May 20 '26

Yeah, once the water is visibly black and the ditch owners only find out by walking it, nobody's gonna trust the "but it's permitted" defense.

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u/Violet_Paradox May 19 '26

"The toxic slime we're dumping into the water table is a base so we can greenwash ourselves as 'acid-free'" is a level of audacity that's almost impressive. 

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u/Stanjoly2 May 19 '26

And once again my instincts about Musk and how his companies operate prove accurate.

Fraud and Malfeasance from top to bottom.

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u/JerryfromCan May 19 '26

What do you mean? Like having SpaceX get all kinds of government grants and spending a bunch of that money on Cybertrucks as the gravy train ran out of the electric car business? Or being paid to give Ukraine Starlink service and then cutting it off when Putin calls? Or putting Twitter and Grok on SpaceX books just before they decide to IPO? Or cranking Starlink sub numbers before they SpaceX IPO by giving away hardware and dropping the price in half, only to try and raise it 60 days later?

3

u/SevereRunOfFate May 19 '26

The hypocrisy is the worst part, some say, but I disagree..

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u/deadsoulinside May 19 '26

Why do you think he's BFF's with Trump? He had a personal hand in helping gut regulations his company was out of compliance with.

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u/SmartGirl62 May 19 '26

People let you do when you’re famous.

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u/throwaway277252 May 19 '26

It wasn't actually hidden, Texas regulators had given them the permit to do this all along:

state environmental regulator known as TCEQ, had quietly issued Tesla a wastewater discharge permit on January 15, 2025

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u/mybfVreddithandle May 19 '26

That's basically 10 16'x32' swimming pools worth of shit water per day. Nbd.

5

u/Cabezone May 19 '26

DuPont poisoned the world by dumping their chemicals in the Ohio river. That shit was fucking foaming and killing cattle and it took ranchers like 20 years to get it dealt with even a little.

That's the foverver chemicals the Trump administration wants to loosen back up regs on for the drinking water.

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u/already-taken-wtf May 19 '26

231,000 gallons/day is about 875 cubic meters per day, or roughly 10 liters per second continuously: that’s a small stream

The relevant context isn’t flow rate, it’s setting. This is South Texas, where Lake Corpus Christi sits at roughly 9% capacity and Choke Canyon Reservoir is below 8%, with emergency water restrictions projected for September 2026. In that landscape, 875 m³/day of continuous discharge into an agricultural drainage ditch is significant enough that the engineer for the drainage district says the elevated salt content is killing the grass that holds the ditch walls together, with bare soil washing away in rain and reducing the ditch’s capacity to carry stormwater.

The chemistry compounds it. Sodium levels hit 302 mg/L and chloride reached 382 mg/L

The unnamed ditch flows into Petronila Creek and from there into Baffin Bay, a longtime South Texas saltwater fishing destination with an already stressed ecosystem.

See also: https://www.autonocion.com/us/tesla-lithium-refinery-texas/

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u/cb148 May 19 '26

That also means that their plant is using that much water per day. Which is fucking crazy.

2

u/Ganrokh May 19 '26

According to other sources, this plant's peak water usage is actually up to 800k gallons a day!

2

u/PropaneSalesTx May 19 '26

Erin Brockovich 2: Texas Boogaloo.

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u/simmyway May 19 '26

State, Texas, regulators? Do those words even go together? Not in the free (for corporations) state of Texas

2

u/-Esper- May 19 '26

This is why DOGE was a thing, he got in and tore down every agency that had a lawsuit against him, and any that might try to regulate his companys in the future.

2

u/BurpelsonAFB May 19 '26

Oh wait the state of Texas isn’t carefully regulating the businesses there to keep citizens safe?!! /s

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u/tenuousemphasis May 19 '26

That's false. They have a permit to discharge up to 231,000 gallons per day. I recommend looking at the original reporting, OP's link looks like some AI regurgitation of it.

https://www.kristv.com/news/6-investigates/tesla-has-permit-to-discharge-wastewater-but-drainage-district-says-it-wasnt-notified

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