What happened next, across the four months that followed, …

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.

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.

…heavy metals were not tested because they had not been part of the original complaint the district filed

…the drainage district had already hired its own attorney and commissioned its own independent test.

Gonna skip the results for length, see article.

The cease-and-desist letter has not yet been answered. TCEQ has not reopened its investigation. Tesla is still operating the plant. The pipe is still discharging. None of this is illegal as currently constituted, because the permit that was written does not require monitoring for the things the independent lab found.