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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

#221

Post by tpmoney »

dylan604 wrote: post #211
tpmoney wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My reading is that Tesla's contention is those contaminants are not coming from their pipe, hence the objection to the measurement being taken from somewhere other than the output of their pipe. And while the contaminants may well be coming from Tesla's pipe, given the apparent lack of coordination between the various governmental agencies involved, it seems reasonable to me to say that they need to sample from the p…

Sure, but that's also the same thing someone would say that knows they are leeching contaminants from other parts of their property but are not coming out this output pipe.

It's also the same thing someone would say that knows they're running a satanic cult sacrificing whales in the sub-basements of the property but knows the evidence of that isn't coming out of this output pipe. And at least so far, the government has not alleged that the contamination is coming from some other here-to-fore undiscovered but connected to the tesla factory location, nor that they are running a satanic whale sacrificing cult in their sub-basements. So speculating about that seems a bit pre-mature.

Perhaps more crucially though, it's also the same thing someone would say who is actually innocent of leeching contaminants. Whether they are or not, nothing in this article is providing any useful evidence.

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

#222

Post by drak0n1c »

john_strinlai wrote: post #124
semiquaver wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The permit also didn’t list strawberry bubblegum. The levels of these pollutants were found to be similar to background levels. Where do you think arsenic comes from? If the Texas regulators are asleep at the wheel then be mad at them. Businesses are guided by laws, but there’s no allegation any laws were broken. I’m no Tesla partisan but this just feels like mindless ragebait.

neat trick is to realize you dont have to pick sides. you can get mad at tesla for dumping wastewater with stuff they dont have a permit for, and you can be mad at the regulators failing to regulate.

Or you can get mad at journalist-bloggers for writing unscientific selective fearmongering hit pieces catering to culture-war-polarized confirmation biases.

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

#223

Post by jandrewrogers »

nradov wrote: post #207
jandrewrogers wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, severe deficiency of arsenic leads to a type of wasting. The precise role is uncertain. Based on animal models the rough estimates for human requirements are similar to selenium. Humans get enough arsenic from water and other background sources that deficiency is virtually unknown. My understanding is that there was historical anecdotal evidence for rare arsenic deficiency from animal husbandry that caused it t…

Could you give us some specific citations for evidence of biological necessity for arsenic and lead? I searched on PubMed but couldn't find anything.

It is damn near impossible to search on Google for this literature today. Fortunately, some of the links have been posted to this site before, which is searchable. :)

Here is the first good reference I could find, which surveys some of the other literature. It mentions lead in rat models.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2246629/

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

#224

Post by ggreer »

xg15 wrote: post #157
ggreer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ok, that's one of the pollutants... But I agree, measuring at the end of the ditch was the wrong thing to do if they take issue with that specific factory (though it was the right thing to do to prove a harmful pollution exists in general) So another measurement directly at the pipe would be in order.

The measured levels of arsenic, strontium, and vanadium are below the limits for drinking water, even in California. And 4% of drinking water sources in California have higher hexavalent chromium content than the water in that ditch.[1] Besides sodium from salt, the only metal that was particularly high was lithium, at 0.0714mg/L or 71 micrograms per liter. A significant fraction of drinking water in the US has higher concentrations than that.[2]

The level of salt shouldn't affect much. Adding up the chloride and sodium content gets you 684mg/L, which is on the low end of brackish water (500-30,000mg/L). The limit for agricultural irrigation is 2,000mg/L, and photos of the pipe show plenty of grass growing around and in the water.

The phosphorous could come from fertilizers, as there's plenty of farm land in the area. That would also explain the higher ammonium levels, as both anhydrous ammonia and ammonium phosphate are common fertilizers.

The article is really about how sensitive our scientific instruments are, not how dangerous the water is. It reminds me of articles like Vice's American Honey Is Radioactive from Decades of Nuclear Bomb Testing[3], where the most radioactive honey they could find was 10 times less radioactive than a banana.

1. https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinki...

2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...

3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26906838

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

#225

Post by [deleted] »

semiquaver wrote: post #134
tremon wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm confused, does Tesla have the right to dump water or not? I would assume that this is exactly what a permit is for? If you have a permit to dump wastewater into a river, you are not allowed to dump your wastewater wherever in that river's basin on the assumption that it will eventually flow into the river. You are supposed to use a pipeline for wastewater transfer.

But the permit is to discharge into a ditch. And that is also the ditch that they are discharging into.

[deleted]

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

#226

Post by DANmode »

tpmoney wrote: post #221
dylan604 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but that's also the same thing someone would say that knows they are leeching contaminants from other parts of their property but are not coming out this output pipe.

It's also the same thing someone would say that knows they're running a satanic cult sacrificing whales in the sub-basements of the property but knows the evidence of that isn't coming out of this output pipe. And at least so far, the government has not alleged that the contamination is coming from some other here-to-fore undiscovered but connected to the tesla factory location, nor that they are running a satanic wh…

Wait, are they sacrificing the whales by putting them in toxic wastewater, in your ridiculous example?

Otherwise, someone’s industrial process is responsible for those samples…

and if the only business in the area that matches the waste is…

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

#227

Post by SecretDreams »

dwattttt wrote: post #199
SecretDreams wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Per ggreer's comment [0], there are other potential sources nearby. It's pretty annoying all told. It invalidates the results; it takes them from "this is clear evidence of a breach" into "maybe it's in breach. Or maybe someone else is. Or maybe both are within their respective limits" [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48199824

Agreed.

Per the article, sounds like everyone would have benefited from more discussion and transparency either way. I find it surprising that these types of permits are issued without formal review at a town council style setting.

Ultimately, the people living in these areas should have an outsized say on what is piped into their way supplies. Same forum could also be used to show it is safe. Or discuss the safety of the ask.

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

#228

Post by SecretDreams »

bloaf wrote: post #209
SecretDreams wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

A counterpoint is this The lab tested for chromium in two ways: one test (ICP) measures all chromium of any kind, and the other measures hexavalent chromium specifically. The ICP test returned a concentration that was an order of magnitude smaller than the hexavalent test. That is to say, the tests contradict each other (because the whole is smaller than the part), and are both at the bottom of range for the tests pe…

Fair comment re hex. Elevated levels of some other elements need to be similarly reviewed.

These types of permits should really need to be discussed in town forums, regardless of the outcome here.

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

#229

Post by rawgabbit »

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…

Texas is notoriously lax. State regulators are quick to dismiss any concerns when there is money to be made.

https://news.utexas.edu/2014/03/27/air-pollution-and-hydraul...

https://publichealthwatch.org/2024/12/12/houston-air-polluti...

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

#230

Post by InvertedRhodium »

semiquaver wrote: post #134
tremon wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm confused, does Tesla have the right to dump water or not? I would assume that this is exactly what a permit is for? If you have a permit to dump wastewater into a river, you are not allowed to dump your wastewater wherever in that river's basin on the assumption that it will eventually flow into the river. You are supposed to use a pipeline for wastewater transfer.

But the permit is to discharge into a ditch. And that is also the ditch that they are discharging into.

“A ditch” and “this ditch specifically” are two entirely separate concepts.
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