[tremon]

> 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.

[wongarsu]

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

[wil421]

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

[solderlocks]

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..."?

[wil421]

They don’t own the drainage ditch. They can still dump the water into the local watershed/river whatever body of water per the permit you stated.

[semiquaver]

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

[InvertedRhodium]

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

[tpmoney]

I feel like this is the reporter choosing ambiguous words. Was this a permit to discharge into “an unnamed ditch” whose location and ownership and end destination are unspecified in the permit and so it is unclear whether this ditch is the appropriate ditch? Or is it “an unnamed ditch” located near by the property, and is very clearly this ditch, the ditch just has no name? The wording in the article could be read either way.

Edit:

Found the permit in the news article linked from the original article. It seems like the wording comes directly from from the permit (https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/14/fb/2a0cdfa24e8791af37...). That reads to me though that this is then the second case (this specific ditch, which is unnamed) and not “an unnamed ditch, of which this is the wrong one”

[semiquaver]

Yeah. And we are dealing with the latter.