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Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

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Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#171

Post by downrightmike »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #118
malfist wrote: post #2

This is the report from testing the water: > 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. > Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L. That is below the federal drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L, but present. > Str…

If I am reading this correctly, the Erin Brockovich hexavalent chromium was detected in Hinkley at levels of 1.2 to 20 ppb (ug/L). Contrasted here with 10.4 ppb (ug/L). Sounds notable to me if they are regularly flooding the zone with this.

And if it is just sitting there, it is concentrating

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#172

Post by culi »

john_strinlai wrote: post #9

apparently, despite my thoughts going into this: > Notably, no party has alleged that Tesla is in violation of any law. TCEQ [(Texas Commission on Environmental Quality)] has not found one. 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.

> Neither hexavalent chromium nor arsenic appears in Tesla’s TCEQ discharge permit as an allowable pollutant. Neither was tested for during TCEQ’s February investigation.

And also

> What [the permit] did not do, explicitly, was grant Tesla the right to use public or private property for wastewater conveyance. The drainage district that manages the ditch the pipe was discharging into was never notified that the permit existed. Its workers found out the way drainage district workers in any small Texas county find out about things: by walking the ditch and seeing something new.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#173

Post by foxglacier »

God this is classic journalistic lying with true facts. I read all the way up to the start of Tesla's response and couldn't tell what they had supposedly done wrong. If there's an accusation in there, it's buried in worthless innuendo and bluster. Luis Reyes doesn't seem to understand the problems involved in comparing the value of a continuous quantity to zero - or more likely, he's trying to mislead his readers. Of course any industrial waste will contain some contaminants in higher concentrations than rainwater!! That doesn't mean there's anything wrong.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#175

Post by culi »

Aloisius wrote: post #28

My eyes glaze over any time an article uses the term "heavy metals" unironically. This could be bad or it could not, but I simply can't take anything seriously that uses ambiguous terms so linked to woo.

The term is used by the EPA and has legal definitions and weight. But I'm glad you somehow found a way to put yourself above it all

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#177

Post by expedition32 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #94

I'm no lover of Elon Musk but this article reads like a hit piece and I literally laughed when I read the findings: > 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. Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L. That is bel…

As long as the factories are on the wrong side of the tracks and not in Beverly Hills absolutely!

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#178

Post by foxglacier »

xg15 wrote: post #152
semiquaver wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no evidence that they are dumping stuff they don’t have a permit for. Finding 1% over background levels in a sample tells you literally nothing. Industrial waste is called such for a reason.

> Industrial waste is called such for a reason. Which is why you shouldn't dump it in a river used for fishing? (Or any river for that matter)

I don't think you understand that people pee lithium into their toilets too. But you didn't just read an article riling you up to being mad at the municipal sewage industry so you aren't mad at it at the moment.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#179

Post by [deleted] »

john_strinlai wrote: post #128
semiquaver wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is no evidence that they are dumping stuff they don’t have a permit for. Finding 1% over background levels in a sample tells you literally nothing. Industrial waste is called such for a reason.

> But there is no evidence that they are dumping stuff they don’t have a permit for well, except for the hexavalent chromium and arsenic findings. but yeah, more testing is needed, and the article is premature.

[deleted]

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#180

Post by teddyh »

hansmayer wrote: post #50
porphyra wrote: post #4

Obviously, discharging "dark and murky" polluted water is bad. But some of the figures from the lab report don't seem that terrible: * 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. * Arsenic at 0.002…

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