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

特斯拉锂精炼厂每天排放 23.1 万加仑污染废水

News: A Texas Drainage District Walked Its Ditch on a Routine Inspection. They Found a Pipe They Didn’t Recognize Discharging Black Liquid From Tesla’s $1 Billion Lithium Refinery. 新闻： 德克萨斯州一个排水区在例行检查时巡视沟渠，发现了一根他们从未见过的管道，正从特斯拉价值 10 亿美元的锂精炼厂排放黑色液体。

Drainage district workers in Nueces County, Texas, were doing routine maintenance on a ditch outside Robstown in January 2026 when they noticed something they had not seen before. A pipe they did not recognize, stretched across an easement they oversee, was discharging dark liquid into the ditch they manage. 2026 年 1 月，德克萨斯州努埃塞斯县（Nueces County）的排水区工作人员在罗布斯敦（Robstown）郊外的一条沟渠进行例行维护时，注意到了一些以前从未见过的情况。一根他们不认识的管道横跨在他们监管的地役权区域上，正向他们管理的沟渠中排放深色液体。

“Very dark and murky,” is how Steve Ray, a consultant for the drainage district, described it to KRIS 6 News. “I would say it was actually black. We’re used to seeing good running water, and so we didn’t know exactly what it was.” “非常深且浑浊，”排水区顾问史蒂夫·雷（Steve Ray）在接受 KRIS 6 新闻采访时这样描述，“我甚至可以说它是黑色的。我们习惯了看到清澈的流水，所以我们当时并不确定那到底是什么。”

The pipe belonged to Tesla. The dark liquid was wastewater from the company’s nearly $1 billion lithium refinery, which began operations in December 2024 and was, at the time, the first commercial-scale spodumene-to-lithium-hydroxide refinery in North America. 这根管道属于特斯拉。这些深色液体是该公司价值近 10 亿美元的锂精炼厂排放的废水。该工厂于 2024 年 12 月投入运营，是当时北美首家商业规模的锂辉石转氢氧化锂精炼厂。

Tesla had marketed the plant for years as an “acid-free clean process,” promising sand and limestone as the main byproducts. The drainage district had not been told that 231,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day would be flowing through its infrastructure. 多年来，特斯拉一直将该工厂宣传为“无酸清洁工艺”，并承诺其主要副产品是沙子和石灰石。排水区此前从未被告知每天会有 23.1 万加仑的处理后废水流经其基础设施。

What happened next, across the four months that followed, is one of the more uncomfortable storylines in the American electric vehicle supply chain right now, and almost no mainstream US automotive press has touched it. 随后的四个月里发生的事情，是目前美国电动汽车供应链中最令人不安的故事之一，几乎没有任何美国主流汽车媒体触及这一话题。

How the drainage district found out about the pipe

排水区是如何发现这根管道的

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state environmental regulator known as TCEQ, had quietly issued Tesla a wastewater discharge permit on January 15, 2025. 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. 德克萨斯州环境质量委员会（TCEQ）是该州的环保监管机构，曾于 2025 年 1 月 15 日悄悄向特斯拉发放了废水排放许可证。该许可证属于“德克萨斯州污染物排放消除系统”（TPDES）授权，允许每天向一条无名沟渠排放最多 23.1 万加仑的处理后废水，该沟渠流入佩特罗尼拉溪（Petronila Creek），并最终汇入南德克萨斯州长期以来的咸水捕鱼目的地——巴芬湾（Baffin Bay）。

What it 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. Its workers found out the way drainage district workers in any small Texas county find out about things: by walking the ditch and seeing something new. 该许可证并未明确授予特斯拉使用公共或私人财产进行废水输送的权利。管理该排污沟渠的排水区从未收到过有关该许可证存在的通知。其工作人员发现这一情况的方式与德克萨斯州任何小县城的排水区工人发现问题的方式一样：通过巡视沟渠并发现了异常。

They filed two complaints with TCEQ in January and February 2026. A state investigator visited on February 12, sampled the water flowing from Tesla’s outfall pipe, ran the standard panel of conventional pollutants: dissolved solids, chlorides, sulfates, oil and grease, temperature, dissolved oxygen. Everything in that panel came back inside the bounds of Tesla’s permit. TCEQ approved its investigation report on March 20, finding no permit violation. 他们在 2026 年 1 月和 2 月向 TCEQ 提交了两份投诉。一名州调查员于 2 月 12 日进行了实地考察，对特斯拉排污管流出的水进行了采样，并检测了常规污染物指标：溶解固体、氯化物、硫酸盐、油和油脂、温度以及溶解氧。检测结果显示，所有指标均在特斯拉许可证允许的范围内。TCEQ 于 3 月 20 日批准了调查报告，认定不存在违规行为。

TCEQ did not test for heavy metals. Aref Mazloum, a volunteer engineer consulting for the drainage district who has also recently joined TCEQ’s water supply division, later explained to the Houston Chronicle that heavy metals were not tested because they had not been part of the original complaint the district filed. The permit also did not require any monitoring of lithium itself, which, as the Texas Tribune later noted, is the primary material the facility was built to process. TCEQ 没有检测重金属。作为排水区顾问的志愿者工程师阿里夫·马兹卢姆（Aref Mazloum）最近也加入了 TCEQ 的供水部门，他后来向《休斯顿纪事报》解释说，之所以没有检测重金属，是因为它们不在该区最初提交的投诉范围内。此外，该许可证也不要求对锂本身进行任何监测，而正如《德克萨斯论坛报》后来指出的那样，锂正是该设施建造的主要加工材料。

What the drainage district’s lab actually found

排水区实验室的实际发现

By the time TCEQ closed its investigation, the drainage district had already hired its own attorney and commissioned its own independent test. Frank Lazarte, an attorney representing Nueces County Drainage District No. 2, contracted Eurofins Environment Testing, an internationally accredited environmental lab with a San Antonio facility, to put a sampling machine in the ditch for 24 hours and analyze what it caught. 在 TCEQ 结束调查时，排水区已经聘请了自己的律师并委托进行了独立的检测。代表努埃塞斯县第 2 排水区的律师弗兰克·拉扎特（Frank Lazarte）委托了拥有国际认证的 Eurofins 环境测试实验室（其在圣安东尼奥设有设施），在沟渠中放置了一台采样机进行 24 小时采样，并对采集到的样本进行了分析。

The unnamed drainage ditch sits less than a mile upstream of Tesla’s discharge pipe. The sample was collected on April 7. Eurofins issued its results on April 10. According to the lab report, the 24-hour composite found: 这条无名排水沟位于特斯拉排污管上游不到一英里处。样本于 4 月 7 日采集，Eurofins 于 4 月 10 日发布了结果。根据实验室报告，24 小时混合样本检测发现：

• 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. 六价铬含量为 0.0104 毫克/升，略高于实验室 0.01 毫克/升的报告限值。六价铬被美国国家毒理学计划列为已知的人类致癌物，这也是“艾琳·布罗克维奇”（Erin Brockovich）案件的核心物质。
• Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L. That is below the federal drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L, but present. 砷含量为 0.0025 毫克/升。虽然低于联邦饮用水标准 0.01 毫克/升，但确实存在。
• Strontium at 1.17 mg/L. Mazloum’s technical report on the findings noted that long-term exposure can affect bone density and kidney function in humans and wildlife. 锶含量为 1.17 毫克/升。马兹卢姆的技术报告指出，长期接触会影响人类和野生动物的骨密度及肾功能。
• Lithium and vanadium at concentrations Lazarte’s letter described as abnormally high relative to rainwater or normal groundwater. 锂和钒的浓度在拉扎特的信中被描述为相对于雨水或正常地下水而言异常偏高。
• Elevated levels of manganese, iron, phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and potassium consistent with industrial discharge. Manganese, a battery process tracer, can have neurological effects at chronic doses. Excess phosphorus can cause algae blooms that strip oxygen from waterways. 锰、铁、磷、钙、镁和钾的含量升高，符合工业排放特征。锰作为电池工艺的示踪剂，长期摄入可能产生神经系统影响。过量的磷会导致藻类大量繁殖，从而耗尽水道中的氧气。
• Ammonia in the form of nitrogen at 1.68 mg/L, amplifying the algae bloom risk. 氨氮含量为 1.68 毫克/升，加剧了藻类爆发的风险。

Neither hexavalent chromium nor arsenic appears in Tesla’s TCEQ discharge permit as an allowable pollutant. Neither was tested for during TCEQ’s February investigation. Mazloum, whose technical report has since been distributed to Texas state legislators, describes the lithium signature in the wastewater as a “fingerprint at a crime scene,” and recommends that Tesla design and fund an on-site multi-stage treatment plant using industrial reverse osmosis to strip heavy metals out of the discharge. 六价铬和砷均未出现在特斯拉的 TCEQ 排放许可证允许的污染物名单中。TCEQ 在 2 月份的调查中也未对这两者进行检测。马兹卢姆的技术报告现已分发给德克萨斯州议员，他将废水中的锂特征描述为“犯罪现场的指纹”，并建议特斯拉设计并出资建立一个现场多级处理厂，利用工业反渗透技术从排放物中去除重金属。

He has also told the Texas Tribune that the elevated salt content is killing the grass that holds the drainage ditch walls together, with the bare soil washing away in rain and reducing the ditch’s capacity to carry stormwater. Mazloum recommends Robstown residents stay away from the ditch. 他还告诉《德克萨斯论坛报》，盐分升高正在杀死加固沟渠壁的草皮，导致裸露的土壤在雨中流失，从而降低了沟渠的雨水承载能力。马兹卢姆建议罗布斯敦居民远离该沟渠。