Plenty of environmentalists and activist teams try to cease Tesla’s deliberate enlargement of Gigafactory Texas. The automaker needs to construct a brand new battery cathode plant subsequent to its essential Austin facility. The teams outlined their issues in a letter to Mayor Steve Adler, calling on him to withhold Tesla’s permits.

One of many essential points was the environmental affect the additional development would have on the native space. The teams felt Tesla has already carried out sufficient environmental injury in Austin with the development of its essential manufacturing facility, and a further battery cathode facility is pointless. Its development would require much more of town’s sources, reminiscent of water. The latter is a key concern, with the teams apprehensive a “poisonous” battery cathode plant by the Colorado River would possibly infect Austin’s water provide.

The environmentalists are additionally aggravated by the shortage of progress on the promised “ecological paradise” Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about. The next is an excerpt from the teams letter:

“Thus far, Tesla has didn’t meaningfully have interaction close by residents, and elected leaders haven’t utilized sufficient stress to carry the corporate to the desk. Two years in the past, Tesla was supplied tens of tens of millions of public {dollars} in tax breaks from neighboring jurisdictions to come right here. The signed agreements and pronouncements allude to many attainable neighborhood advantages however lack specificity or enforcement provisions. Since 2020, we observe that the corporate has cleared swaths of timber, moved mountains of dust, stuffed in ponds, and poured over 100 contiguous acres of concrete for its manufacturing facility, with apparently no precedence given to the creation of a promised “ecological paradise” on the riverfront.

Public officers in addition to neighbors have been left scratching their heads questioning whether or not the corporate will reside as much as any of its verbal commitments, or proceed to function with little regard to social or environmental accountability.The Tesla manufacturing facility is yet one more disturbing instance of environmental injustice on the east facet of Austin, following a longstanding sample of polluting industrial initiatives being concentrated close to low-income communities of coloration, disregarding the damaging impacts on human and environmental well being.”