[xg15]

> What [the wastewater discharge 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.

I find it kinda worrying that so much of the legal weight of this case doesn't seem to be about the untreated wastewater discharge at all but only about the detail that they used a county-owned ditch to do so.

So if Tesla had dug their own ditch or built the pipe all the way to Petronila Creek, the discharge would have been no problem?

(Well, that's not completely true as the additional pollutants aren't covered by the permit either - but without the ditch issue, probably no one would have commissioned an analysis of the water?)

[nine_k]

Can a big and rich company be fined for some minor technicality? Maybe! If the cost of the attempt is lower than the amount of the possible fine, why not try and find out? This may sound cynical, but this also one of the driving forces that often keep big companies from breaking rules.