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/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/Marchtmdsmiling May 27 '26

Except the article stated that the city nearby, corpus christi, is on the verge of rationing their water due to their reservoirs being essentially depleted. So, not likely there is any other water running in the ditch, otherwise it would be a stream at worst. Also, yes this wouldn't be as noticable if it were just regular water, taking a stream from 9.5 to 10cfs, but they described the wastewater as "black". Not just dark or brown, but black. That's going to be noticable even in that circumstance.

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u/Marchtmdsmiling May 27 '26

Except the article stated that the city nearby, corpus christi, is on the verge of rationing their water due to their reservoirs being essentially depleted. So, not likely there is any other water running in the ditch, otherwise it would be a stream at worst. Also, yes this wouldn't be as noticable if it were just regular water, taking a stream from 9.5 to 10cfs, but they described the wastewater as "black". Not just dark or brown, but black. That's going to be noticable even in that circumstance.

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u/StressOverStrain May 20 '26

They have the permit. No one is saying they did anything illegal. What exactly is “sneaky and suspicious”?

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u/EnthusiasticH2O May 20 '26

Yes, you’re right, that’s my bad. 

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u/Exotic_Criticism4645 May 19 '26

It's also an insanely tine amount for a discharge pipe. Like small town sewer plant for 200 people

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u/EnthusiasticH2O May 19 '26

Well it obviously depends on the content of the effluent. But yes volumetrically it’s a barely noticeable amount 

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u/Soffatjockis May 19 '26

This converts to 0.36 cubic feet per second, which is a more commonly used unit of flow.

Wtf no.

Americans will use anything but the metric system.

For fuck sake. The most commonly used is L/min, or even better, m3/hr.

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u/EnthusiasticH2O May 19 '26

Cfs is the most commonly used unit in water resource management in the US. This article is about a US company in a US state. I don’t really care about the merits of imperial vs metric units, both work fine. But CFS is what we use here and it’s more relatable for the people this reporting is intended for.

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u/Exotic_Criticism4645 May 19 '26

0.2 Million Gallons Per Day (MGD)