samsung "Did I do that?": Samsung dumps 3/4 of a million gallons of toxic waste into Texas ecosystem

[BachChain]

Summary

According to a report published by the Austin City Council, Samsung Austin, a division of the Samsung Group located within Austin, Texas, has dumped a substantial amount of acidic waste into a stormwater pond near one of their semiconductor facilities. The waste, composed primarily of sulfuric acid, is believed to have been dumped over the course of over three months, with a total amount estimated to be up to 763 thousand gallons. The report sates there is virtually no life remaining within the pond or the tributary that feeds from the pond into the Harris Branch Creek, however the creek itself is believed to be largely unaffected. Investigation and remediation is still ongoing.

 

Quotes

Quote

While it is unknown how much waste entered the tributary, Watershed Protection Department

(WPD) staff found virtually no surviving aquatic life within the entire tributary from the
Samsung property to the main branch of Harris Branch Creek, near Harris Branch Parkway.
However, no measurable impacts to water chemistry or aquatic life were noted further
downstream, and there was no iron staining to indicate any drop in pH had occurred within the
main branch of Harris Branch Creek.

Quote

The notification stated that over a
period as long as 106 days, up to 763,000 gallons of acidic waste reached the stormwater pond
on the Samsung property and also impacted the nearby tributary of Harris Branch Creek.

 

My thoughts

I'm almost impressed at the ability of large corporations to "accidentally" dump massive amounts of toxic waste and then not notice for months

 

Sources

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-austin-spilled-763000-gallons-acid-waste-ecosystem

https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/pio/document.cfm?id=375566

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

2 minutes ago, BachChain said:

My thoughts

I'm almost impressed at the ability of large corporations to "accidentally" dump massive amounts of toxic waste and then not notice for months

It's almost as amazing as politicians "forgetting" about the donations they get from businesses and friends. 

[BiotechBen]

And you find any of this surprising? Or have I just become completely numb to the fact that the world is fucked and with the time we have left there is very little that the people who will have to live with it can do to change the outcome and it's primarily the people going "well I'll be dead by then, why should I care" who are in the position of power to be making the decisions.

[dilpickle]

18 minutes ago, BachChain said:

My thoughts

 

I'm almost impressed at the ability of large corporations to "accidentally" dump massive amounts of toxic waste and then not notice for months

Not to defend these reckless mega-corporations but it could easily happen accidentally.

 

Since you see the words "dump" and "toxic waste" you're probably picturing a human being overturning giant barrels of green sludge into a river.

 

That's not what happened here. Certain chemicals went out with wastewater that is regularly discharged. The wrong valve could have been turned somewhere and could have easily have been overlooked. Again not to defend anyone but just trying to give some context here.

[thechinchinsong]

 

Just now, dilpickle said:

Not to defend these reckless mega-corporations but it could easily happen accidentally.

 

Since you see the words "dump" and "toxic waste" you're probably picturing a human being overturning giant barrels of green sludge into a river.

 

That's not what happened here. Certain chemicals went out with wastewater that is regularly discharged. The wrong valve could have been turned somewhere and could have easily have been overlooked. Again not to defend anyone but just trying to give some context here.

Yeah, but even if its accidental, it needs to be punished and prevented. If you don't prosecute this kind of behavior, who knows how many more "accidental" leakages are gonna occur. EPA's already gutted enough as it is.

[Dillpickle23422]

wow almost like big companies and mega conglomerates don't care about the environment??!!??

 

[poochyena]

13 minutes ago, dilpickle said:

Not to defend these reckless mega-corporations but it could easily happen accidentally.

 

Since you see the words "dump" and "toxic waste" you're probably picturing a human being overturning giant barrels of green sludge into a river.

 

That's not what happened here. Certain chemicals went out with wastewater that is regularly discharged. The wrong valve could have been turned somewhere and could have easily have been overlooked. Again not to defend anyone but just trying to give some context here.

Right, its clearly their fault, but the eagerness of some people to jump into conspiracy theories to push a narrative is ridiculous.

[Arika]

TIL about electronics grade sulfuric acid.

[tridy]

As a company they have standards and norms about natural impacts on the places around the factories. This implies that they need to probe the air, soil and water around the factory pretty much on a continuous basis. The water must be monitored all the time. So not 3 months but 3 minutes and it should have been discovered and stopped. On that level of the factory, the 3 months accidents must not occur.

 

I just love how they say "majority" and call 763,000 gallons of acidic waste "a portion". And using the word Luckily is such a dirty (pun intended) way to smooth it.

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/samsung-austin-spilled-763000-gallons-acid-waste-ecosystem

Quote

A spokesperson for Samsung has provided a statement to local news agencies such as CBS Austin. According to Samsung, "a majority of the wastewater was contained on-site; however, a portion was inadvertently released into an unnamed small tributary that is upstream of Harris Branch Creek." After discovering the release, Samsung said it stopped the discharges, hired a cleanup specialist, and is taking action to find a solution to the problem and "restore the tributary." Luckily, the main branch of the Harris Branch Creek appeared to be still unaffected by the catastrophe upstream.

 

Prevented and punished? I think that they will be able to "buy off" this "small accident" and business will go on.

 

It should not only be a severe fine but also the cost of the eco recovery for the region.

 

 

 

[wanderingfool2]

3 hours ago, tridy said:

Prevented and punished? I think that they will be able to "buy off" this "small accident" and business will go on.

 

It should not only be a severe fine but also the cost of the eco recovery for the region.

 

Not defending them, but I would say they should pay for the recovery and a fine...but at the same time I would like to see an assessment of what actually happened.  If lets say this was caused because of lax environment restrictions (government level), then it might be more important to actually change the laws surrounding this (to prevent other companies from having ticking time bombs)

[CarlBar]

37 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Not defending them, but I would say they should pay for the recovery and a fine...but at the same time I would like to see an assessment of what actually happened.  If lets say this was caused because of lax environment restrictions (government level), then it might be more important to actually change the laws surrounding this (to prevent other companies from having ticking time bombs)

 

Important point. Did this happen because they didn't comply with the legally mandated standards, or was this a case the existing requirements don't adequately protect against. Those are two very different scenarios from my PoV. 

[leadeater]

Clearly this is all the fault of Nvidia, miners and scalpers trying to get their greedy hands on GPUs.

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, tridy said:

So not 3 months but 3 minutes and it should have been discovered and stopped. On that level of the factory, the 3 months accidents must not occur.

Nobody is doing 3 minute samples of river/stream water quality, that's actually impossible.

 

Quote

However, no measurable impacts to water chemistry or aquatic life were noted further downstream, and there was no iron staining to indicate any drop in pH had occurred within the main branch of Harris Branch Creek.

To detect that kind of water contamination is not a simple or quick matter and would require much more advanced screening than any field testing kit could ever do.

 

Not saying it shouldn't have been possible to detect, alert and prevent within the factory itself however the amount of water discharge a facility like this outputs the actual volume of toxic waste is not at all surprising or abnormal for an accident like this. Have a think about this, if this was so hard to detect then how much regular clean discharge is there that was diluting this making it's detection so difficult. It may seem like a huge number, compared to a house, but remember this is a mega factory of the type that uses a lot of water and acid and leather tanning would probably be one of the few that could give it a run for it's money on volume of chemicals used.

 

Until there is a proper investigation report in to how this happened I would not be saying this was simple to detect and prevent at all.

[Bitter]

13 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Clearly this is all the fault of Nvidia, miners and scalpers trying to get their greedy hands on GPUs.

I was going to crack some similar joke but I couldn't easily figure out what they actually make there so I guess let's blame Chia mining because I most associate Samsung with storage devices.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Bitter said:

I was going to crack some similar joke but I couldn't easily figure out what they actually make there so I guess let's blame Chia mining because I most associate Samsung with storage devices.

I didn't check what they made there, that's not how blame game company bashing works 

[Salv8 (sam)]

didn't these people grow up watching captain planet?

did nothing from it stick in their minds?

[Master Disaster]

Coming from the state that evicted an entire elderly community to allow Musk to build a rocket base metres away from a wildlife sanctuary and then went on the allow him to blow multiple rockets up pretty much on top of the wildlife sanctuary I wouldn't expect Samsung to get into too much trouble for this.

 

I'm sure some politicians are lining pockets in the background somewhere.

[ravenshrike]

6 hours ago, tridy said:

I just love how they say "majority" and call 763,000 gallons of acidic waste "a portion"

No, the up to 763k gallons was a SWAG(scientific wild assed guess) after inspection of the leak as to the total possible amount of fluid the leak was able to discharge assuming it broke the day after it was last inspected. They also don't know how much transferred from the stormwater pond(an artificial structure meant to reduce the possibility of flooding at the plant) into the small tributary,  only that it was less than the majority given precipitation patterns and lack of discernable damage to the main creek stem.

[tridy]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Nobody is doing 3 minute samples of river/stream water quality, that's actually impossible.

 

To detect that kind of water contamination is not a simple or quick matter and would require much more advanced screening than any field testing kit could ever do.

I think it is true in their case as well and the water is stored in a huge before it gets released into the nature. Taking samples from there would show the higher pH. i wonder, Is doing water pH test still that advanced today?

 

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-08/documents/method_150-2_1982.pdf

 

taking a sample from a water in a river every 3 minutes for pH test does not sound that advanced to me.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

SWAG(scientific wild assed guess)

 

I spent way too long looking for a suitable gif lol

 

Also excellent point and I love how you worded it lol

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, tridy said:

Taking samples from there would show the higher pH

It's supposed to be higher, that's why it's stored there and not supposed to be released in to the ecosystem. How is the question, not if it were toxic or not which was already an established fact in the first place.

[tridy]

15 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

No, the up to 763k gallons was a SWAG(scientific wild assed guess)

so, in theory it actually could be more

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, tridy said:

taking a sample from a water in a river every 3 minutes for pH test does not sound that advanced to me.

But that doesn't attempt to cover the practicality of it, because this was an abnormal release that isn't supposed to happen where is it that you do the water sampling? And then how do you maintain it correctly and then what happens if you aren't sampling in a place that would allow you to sufficiently pick it up.

 

Quote

7.2.2 The temperature and condition of the grab sample must remain constant until its pH has been measured by the laboratory pH meter. The temperature of the sample should be measured and the temperature compensator of the laboratory pH meter adjusted

 

Quote

8.3 In wastewaters, the electrode may require periodic cleaning. After manual cleaning, the electrode should be calibrated as in 7.1 or 7.2 before returning to service.

 

8.4 The electrode must be placed so that the water or waste flowing past the electrode is representative of the system.

 

Quote

10.1 Because of the wide variability of equipment and conditions and the changeable character of the pH of many process waters and wastes, the precision of this method is probably less than that of Method 150.1; however, a precision of 0.1 pH unit should be attainable in the range of ph 6.0 to 8.0. Accuracy data for continuous monitoring equipment are not available at this time.

 

Just these factors alone make it unsuitable for ecosystem environment monitoring, I could keep reading through it in more detail however this seems more applicable to a closed water treatment system than river/water quality testing or waste water outlet etc

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, tridy said:

I think it is true in their case as well and the water is stored in a huge before it gets released into the nature. Taking samples from there would show the higher pH. i wonder, Is doing water pH test still that advanced today?

 

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-08/documents/method_150-2_1982.pdf

 

taking a sample from a water in a river every 3 minutes for pH test does not sound that advanced to me.

They only said it contained sulfuric acid.  That might have been the main ingredient with sufficient alkalies to balance it. It would still be hugely toxic but fail to show up on a basic PH test.  

 

I have a friend who specialize in water treatment for process like this,  He was always telling me how some dick wad who isn't interested in working would ignore a beeper or delay testing so they wouldn't have to do anything about, turning a small issue into a million litres of waste water with toxic concentrations so high it'd kill everything that it was poured on, this sounds like something can easily happen without being intentional.  Intentional meaning the company itself has SOP's and CnB's to prevent this, but the employees on shift either weren't trained or didn't care. 

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

They only said it contained sulfuric acid.  That might have been the main ingredient with sufficient alkalies to balance it.

Neutralising acids/bases is exactly free though. There is usually other chemicals (salts for example) that form as a result of the 2 chemcals mixing.

 

Dumping a fuck tonne of salts into water is no better for the wildlife than just dumping the acid in straight.