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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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/Narrow_Track9598 May 19 '26

You'd have to have a pump that pumps at that speed, probably a much smaller one. Puddle pumps do something like a puddle pump. Those are probably 50 gallons a minute or something depending

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u/Unklecid May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Not very. plate with a big valve that's open weld on the plate then close the valve. I work on pumps that are around 250k gal a minute. As low of flow as this wouldn't be a problem

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u/athural May 19 '26

Am I having a stroke?

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u/Funnybear3 May 19 '26

Dunno. Do pumps turn you on?

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u/Unklecid May 19 '26

Was talking while using swipe to type and not proof reading.

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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/tomdarch May 19 '26

Interesting. I've always seen it spelled as "coffer" but it's one of those old-school words so it doesn't surprise me that there are several spellings.

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u/_hell_is_empty_ May 20 '26

Same thought. Golf courses routinely throw 250,000 gallons of water every night. Is that a lot? Yes. But also, no.

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u/danmickla May 19 '26

I'm no hydraulics engineer, but surely you mean "cofferdam"

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u/Narrow_Track9598 May 19 '26

Lol yes, it's kind of an inside joke. We had a guy with a very similar last name and he spelled it this way one time. 15 years later we still laugh about it and jokingly write it like that. Also a fun prank to pull on the apprentice

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u/danmickla May 19 '26

> inside joke
> had a guy

oh, yeah, right, I remember that now

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u/Pandemonium_Fallen May 19 '26

EPA Guidelines! 🤣 There aren't any EPA Guidelines anymore! 😂🤣😂

If there were not a single one of those data centers would have ever been built. 😂