2024-02-29 05:28:00
The German division of the American automaker Tesla in the Grünheide district may leave Berlin without fresh water due to regularly exceeding permissible standards for the content of hazardous substances in wastewater, Stern magazine reported.
As follows from the letter from the Strausberg-Erkner Water Supply Association, the American automaker has been violating existing requirements for two years by “regularly and in large volumes” discharging phosphorus and nitrogen into wastewater. Data indicate that emissions exceed established standards by six or more times. In their letter, representatives of the association called on burgomasters and representatives of city administrations in the district to shut off the plant’s sewage pipes and prohibit the discharge of process water until “further proceedings.” As the media note, compliance with such a requirement could mean stopping production at the plant.
According to the magazine, an official representative of the Tesla plant in Germany does not deny that the company exceeds the standard indicators for the content of phosphorus and sulfur in wastewater. However, according to him, the enterprise has installed hydrotreatment capacity, and exceeding the permissible values is due to the discharge into the network of water used for “technical, not production needs.”
At the same time, as the representative of the Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries named after. Leibniz in Berlin Martin Push, high concentrations of harmful substances in wastewater could threaten the drinking water supply of the German capital. According to the expert, the wastewater discharged by the Tesla plant undergoes hydrotreatment at a wastewater treatment plant in the community of Münchehof and then flows into the Spree River and then into Lake Müggelsee, from which, after additional filtration, one of the largest waterworks in Berlin takes water.
“If wastewater treatment plants cannot fully cope with the task of hydrotreating under conditions of maximum levels of hazardous substances, this will lead to the contamination of Lake Müggelsee, and with them the drinking water of Berlin,” Pusch stated.
In recent months, protests by local residents against the American automaker’s enterprise have intensified in the region. According to a recent sociological survey, almost two-thirds of the district’s residents opposed the company’s plans to expand production capacity due to environmental factors, as well as the additional burden it would place on Grünheide’s infrastructure. As the media note, activists of the district’s civil initiative warned about possible environmental problems even before the start of construction of the plant, including due to the clearing of forests for the construction of the plant.
EADaily clarifies that the Tesla plant in Germany, also known as the Berlin-Brandenburg Gigafactory, was opened in the spring of 2022. The decision of the company’s management to locate production in Germany was actively supported by the official authorities of Germany.
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