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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

#181

Post by jandrewrogers »

Aurornis wrote: post #164
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…

Those levels are low enough that they might be coming from the water going into the plant. Arsenic and hexavalent chromium are both naturally occurring substances in low quantities. You can pull uncontaminated water out of the ground in remote locations and detect low levels of arsenic and hexavalent chromium. That hexavalent chromium number would be just barely about California's strict limit for drinking water, but…

Out of curiosity, I checked the water records re: arsenic.

Test wells for the region in question have had arsenic levels several times that being discussed here for years. In fact, the water district started failing Federal arsenic standards last summer[0] and has received three formal violation notices.

They were nearly in violation a year before the lithium plant even opened. At least in terms of arsenic, the levels coming out of the plant are significantly lower than background.

[0] https://www.kristv.com/running-dry/ncwcid-3-gets-third-arsen...

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

#182

Post by _wire_ »

something765478 wrote: post #91

> The permit, a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System authorization known as TPDES, allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day to be discharged into an unnamed ditch that flows into Petronila Creek and from there into Baffin Bay, a longtime South Texas saltwater fishing destination. Ok, so sounds like Tesla got the necessary legal provisions. > What it did not do, explicitly, was grant Tesla t…

>> The permit requires monitoring at the outfall point...

The permit is a license to pollute, but go on:

>> ...and the company has pointed out that ditch samples can pick up contaminants from sources that have nothing to do with Tesla’s wastewater.

Downstream, others are picking up contaminants from a source that has nothing to do with them.

> As the article itself says, that is a legitimate argument.

OK, lovely, glad that's settled.

NEXT!

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

#183

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Although I hate Tesla, think the greater issue is that since we're probably going to have to move a lot of material sourcing and industrial plant capacity back to the United States in the coming decades...

The US is probably going to need to make another pass at how we're going to do that without creating polluted wastelands and super fund sites.

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

#184

Post by xg15 »

foxglacier wrote: post #178
xg15 wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes, and you shouldn't dump untreated municipal wastewater into rivers either? That's what we have treatment plants for. I don't get what that has to do with anything.

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

#186

Post by SecretDreams »

something765478 wrote: post #91

> The permit, a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System authorization known as TPDES, allowed up to 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day to be discharged into an unnamed ditch that flows into Petronila Creek and from there into Baffin Bay, a longtime South Texas saltwater fishing destination. Ok, so sounds like Tesla got the necessary legal provisions. > What it did not do, explicitly, was grant Tesla t…

> Lithium and vanadium at concentrations Lazarte’s letter described as abnormally high relative to rainwater or normal groundwater.

> 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.

> Strontium at 1.17 mg/L. Mazloum’s technical report on the findings noted that long-term exposure can affect bone density and kidney function in humans and wildlife.

Some of the elements of note that were detected. These are all well above background levels. The point about not measuring at the outfall is valid, but probably not relevant. Unless we think there are other lithium and hex sources nearby.

The real crime is that a permit was issued at all and that it was not so comprehensive. But that's the beauty of Texas - their citizens love this kind of thing.

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

#187

Post by defrost »

wongarsu wrote: post #140
Braxton1980 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would Eurofins be able to set up monitoring on Tesla's property? What other sources would have similar pollutants to a Lithium factory? It seems pretty specific and if there was some other obvious source why wouldn't Tesla point that out?

They list 6 pollutants, but only two of them seem relevant to the legality of this. One is an amount of arsenic that is a quarter of what's allowed in drinking water. So technically, someone dumping drinking water in the ditch could contaminate this measurement. The other is hexavalent chromium, which is 4% higher than allowed. According to wikipedia that is "indeed one of the more widely used heavy metals in various…

> collecting runoff is what ditches are there for

Sure. What ditches aren't for, and vary greatly wrt, is discharging all inputs out to sea or or a large body of water for "sufficient" dilution.

Ditches can be sealed (concrete lined, with a membrane underneath) or, say, just dirt.

Dirt ditches with a long run filter .. heavier particles drop out, weeds and other organics grab onto various compounds, etc. Those things that filter out and layer into a ditch and can then concentrate over time (subject to terms and conditions).

A reasonable question, that should be asked of any industrial area, is whether dirt ditches, leaky pipes, the whole deal, are accumulating toxins over a decade or more ... and what the impact and remediation plan is for that.

Worst case, ditch line concentrates leach down into a water table close enough to an extraction pump that goes to water food or be drunk by people. (Or later in time earthworks for housing kick up a dust layer that just happens to be mostly "20 years of bad ju-ju")

Not insurmountable, something to be wary of, these things have happened.

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

#188

Post by nradov »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #114
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…

> Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L That is well below the noise floor. Like the similarly toxic selenium, arsenic is an essential micronutrient in animal biology. It is possible to be deficient in arsenic, though rare in practice. Natural background levels are far higher in many locales with no adverse effects. I often see trace quantities of arsenic trotted out by the popular media for scaremongering purposes. Examples like t…

Could you expand on what makes arsenic an essential micronutrient? What are the clinical signs and symptoms of severe arsenic deficiency? I've never heard of this before.

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

#189

Post by selectodude »

nradov wrote: post #188
jandrewrogers wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L That is well below the noise floor. Like the similarly toxic selenium, arsenic is an essential micronutrient in animal biology. It is possible to be deficient in arsenic, though rare in practice. Natural background levels are far higher in many locales with no adverse effects. I often see trace quantities of arsenic trotted out by the popular media for scaremongering purposes. Examples like t…

Could you expand on what makes arsenic an essential micronutrient? What are the clinical signs and symptoms of severe arsenic deficiency? I've never heard of this before.

It’s not hard to figure this stuff out yourself.

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

#190

Post by vfclists »

Trying to boost numbers by using units people can't picture or comprehend is not very useful.

231000 gallons is 1000 cubic meters, ie a 10 metre cube.

Perhaps the number of olympic size swimming pools of a standardized depth may be more useful. Perhaps the number of 3m deep Olympic sized swimming pools or gas/oil storage tanks.

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