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by WilTimSon 871 days ago
"[The] company agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle the suit"

Lords, this is how easy it is to get away with it? There's no incentive for them to stop then, because disposing of this waste would surely cost more and it's not like they're environmentalists who would prioritise nature over carmaking. Seems especially egregious compared to the GM settlement mentioned in the article - at $773 million.
2 comments
bryanlarsen 871 days ago
First offences for both corporations and people are almost always very light compared to subsequent offences. As part of the settlement they would have signed something promising not to do it again. The disincentive is the realization that they won't get off so easy the next time.
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jauntywundrkind 871 days ago
From It's the Impunity, Stupid,

> By the end of 2021 it had racked up 12 new violations, and over the course of 2022 it racked up another 28, barely breaking stride for a $275,000 federal settlement that similarly touted EPA’s “compliance monitoring” as having “returned [Tesla] to compliance.” Over the course of 2023, Tesla received a whopping 76 notices of violation of the Clean Air Act.

And now we are finding they are poisoning the groundwater with a litany of chemicals ranging from bad to extremely horrible (Benzene, Ethylbenzene, TCE, PCE, Arsenic, and 1,4 dioxane).

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belltaco 871 days ago
> Seems especially egregious compared to the GM settlement mentioned in the article - at $773 million

Maybe the scale, duration, impact and response were different? As I said in the other comment this story appears to be about Tesla service centers' waste, and the GM issue you mentioned is about manufacturing facilities.

> The United States alleged in bankruptcy filings that Old GM operated an aluminum diecasting plant on the Massena property from 1959 to 2009, and that Old GM disposed of hazardous substances including polycholorinated biphenyls (also known as PCBs) at the property

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-announces-appro...

That was at just one site over a span of half a century.

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