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

Post by rmu09 » Tue, May 19, 2026, 9:41 PM UTC

riversflow wrote: post #43

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…

nah, there is no reason they should be discharging any hexavalent chromium, we have better, less insanely toxic ways of chroming things. trivalent chromium is much less toxic, hexavalent chromium should be banned world-wide. what's more, i'm not finding a reason that tesla would need hexavalent chromium in battery production, which leads me to speculate that this is waste from one of their other car factories where t…

Post by solderlocks » Tue, May 19, 2026, 9:44 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #141

wongarsu wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But according to the article the permit is for dumping wastewater into a ditch. And Tesla appears to deliver the wastewater to that ditch by pipe. And it doesn't appear like the pipe is the topic of contention here, but where it ends and what comes out of it. All things that seem to be properly permitted, from what the article is telling us

They have a permit to dump water but not put it in the ditch where the pipe runs. They need to get it to a body of water, not a ditch. Dumping into the drainage ditch or running a pipe in the drainage ditch requires a separate permit. The water quality is also questionable. Tesla and the drainage company are at odds on the testing method. At least that’s my understanding of the situation

Post by xg15 » Tue, May 19, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

baggy_trough wrote: post #58

fuzzy2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, maybe strive to release no pollutants at all? Then we wouldn't need all the pesky big government overreach.

To exist is to pollute.

Post by xg15 » Tue, May 19, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #142

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?

Hexavalent chromium can come from many industrial sources, including welding stainless steel. If you go to Tesla's lithium refinery in google maps[1] and follow the drainage ditch along highway 77 (to the northeast) about a half mile, you'll see a company called Tex-Isle Processing. They supply steel pipes and coating services for oil drilling.[2] It could be that one of their manufacturing processes creates hexavale…

Post by wil421 » Tue, May 19, 2026, 9:53 PM UTC

solderlocks wrote: post #153

wil421 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a permit to dump water but not put it in the ditch where the pipe runs. They need to get it to a body of water, not a ditch. Dumping into the drainage ditch or running a pipe in the drainage ditch requires a separate permit. The water quality is also questionable. Tesla and the drainage company are at odds on the testing method. At least that’s my understanding of the situation

Doesn't the article state that "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..."?