Bay Area air quality officials have launched an investigation into Tesla, accusing the electrical automobile manufacturer of releasing large amounts of harmful toxins into the air from its Fremont automobile factory. In a double blow, an environmental group has filed a brand new lawsuit against the corporate over such pollutant emissions.
Since 2019, Tesla, the made a profit of $17.7 billion last yr According to regulatory filings, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has authorized 112 illegal releases of toxic substances, each containing as much as 750 kilos (340 kilograms) of harmful pollutants, it said in a press release earlier this month.
Even small amounts of ozone, created when the released chemicals meet sunlight, can harm health, especially in children, the elderly and folks with asthma, the district said. Other pollutants released could cause cancer and, even in small amounts, neurological, reproductive and developmental harm, in line with the regulator, which cited Tesla's paint booths and paint curing ovens as sources of the pollution.
Tesla didn’t reply to requests for comment on the district's investigation or the allegations or claims within the lawsuit.
On May 2, county officials announced they’d seek an order to shut the 2 auto paint shops on the Fremont plant if Tesla doesn’t conform to hire outside experts to assist reduce emissions.
The district said this week that it had previously investigated pollution from Tesla's factory and located it was brought on by repeated problems within the paint departments' containment systems and production lines.
“Tesla has made operational changes, but ultimately they were not sufficient,” said district spokeswoman Kristina Chu, adding that the agency may sue Tesla over emissions.
Despite “extensive discussions” between county officials and the corporate, Tesla has didn’t curb emissions, said the county's request for an order from its hearing committee, which rules on regulatory compliance issues.
Meanwhile, the automaker, led by notoriously anti-regulation CEO Elon Musk, is facing a brand new lawsuit from a neighborhood environmental group that claims Tesla's “extensive and persistent” emissions are exposing area residents and staff to health-threatening chemicals, including arsenic.
“We feel like profit is more important than being a good neighbor and supporting human health,” said Tanya Boyce, executive director of the Environmental Democracy Project, a nonprofit that filed the lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Boyce identified that the kids attend Bringhurst Elementary School, which is only a mile from the Tesla plant.
Her group's lawsuit points to a “long history of noncompliance with environmental laws” on the factory, alleging that Tesla violated federal air quality regulations greater than 160 times between January 2021 and January 2024.
Tesla's documents filed with the lawsuit list greater than 90 violations of the corporate's permit from the Air Quality Authority between January 2022 and June 2023. Tesla almost at all times attributed the causes to “unforeseen” breakdowns and malfunctions, the documents say.
The air quality agency described Tesla’s emissions as “predictable” in its press release.
The Environmental Democracy Project addresses pollution in communities of color. The city of Fremont describes itself as “one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the Bay Area,” with 63% of residents speak a language apart from English at home. According to the U.S. Census, the town's population is 62% Asian, 21% white, 12% Latino, and three% black.
In a March letter to Musk, the Environmental Democracy Project said it plans to sue Tesla in federal court for alleged Clean Air Act violations since the air quality agency has not already done so. “This leaves citizens like the EDP to challenge the law on their own.”
The Fremont plant where Tesla manufactures its Models 3, X, Y and S has long been the goal of regulatory and legal motion.
In February, eight Bay Area counties sued Tesla, claiming the corporate illegally dumped hazardous waste produced at its Fremont plant and its auto repair shops within the region. District attorneys in Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma counties, in addition to 17 other California prosecutors, allege in San Joaquin County Superior Court that the corporate violated a lot of laws governing the labeling, transportation and disposal of toxic materials.
In a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached in February 2022, Tesla agreed to pay a high-quality of $275,000 over three years for violating the Clean Air Act at its Fremont plant.
Tesla was fined $750,000 in 2021 as a part of a settlement with the Federal Aviation Administration for 33 air quality violations since 2015. In 2019, the corporate agreed to pay a $31,000 high-quality for violating hazardous waste disposal regulations at its Fremont factory as a part of one other settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Boyce believes that the “very small” penalties for Tesla are simply “the cost of doing business.”
Musk has regularly flouted and disparaged rules and regulators. tweeted last yr“Like Gulliver, bound by thousands of tiny threads, we lose our freedom through one regulation after another.”
In 2018, Musk agreed to pay a $20 million high-quality to settle a SEC charge that he misled investors with a tweet about Tesla going private — then he mocked the SEC on Twitter. At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Tesla kept its Fremont factory running for nearly per week in violation of a health order, prompting Musk to tweet that an “ignorant” Alameda County health official was “violating our constitutional freedoms.”
image credit : www.mercurynews.com