A county environmental regulator has fined Boring Company, Elon Musk’s tunneling venture, nearly $500,000 after the company dumped “drilling fluids” into manholes around Las Vegas, which led to “substantial damage” to the broader county’s infrastructure, according to a notice of violation sent to the company last week.
Clark County Water Reclamation District (CCWRD) claims that, this summer, Boring Company employees refused to stop dumping drilling fluids when inspectors arrived at its project site near the center of town and directed them to stop, according to the violation. The next day, Boring apparently “feigned compliance” only to continue dumping the wastewater after a company manager “assumed district inspectors had departed the property,” according to a cease-and-desist letter. CCWRD says that its crews ultimately had to clean 12 cubic yards of “drilling mud, drilling spoils, and miscellaneous solid waste” from one of its sewage treatment facilities due to Boring’s discharges across two of its project sites, according to the notice of violation, which was obtained by Fortune via a records request.
The drilling fluids and spoils noted in the citation appear to refer to the toxic liquid that collects in the bottom of the tunnels as Boring’s machinery drills through earth and rock—liquid which can contain a variety of chemicals including MasterRoc AGA 41S. Many Boring workers have gotten burned by these chemicals when their skin was directly exposed to them.
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The new fines and allegations are the latest controversy to flare up around Boring Company. The company has on several occasions been accused by employees and regulators of skirting safety protocols or regulations as it constructs a network of tunnels below Las Vegas that the company says will serve as an “underground highway” for Teslas to zip through.
The Clark County water agency said that Boring Company’s actions had violated federal laws and regulations, and told Boring it was issuing $493,297.08 in fines, including $131,297.08 for the district’s expenses to remedy the fluid dumping. CCWRD said the fine was due to “the egregious nature of the violations, the substantial damage to district infrastructure, the district emergency resources expended responding to the Violations, and [Boring Company’s] acknowledgement of responsibility for the Violations,” according to the notice of violation. CCWRD has only issued a fine greater than $100,000 to one other company for wastewater discharge in the last three years, according to other documents obtained by Fortune in a separate records request.
The violation records show that several Boring Company executives attended a hearing with CCWRD at the end of September and that Boring Company acknowledged responsibility and agreed not to expand Boring’s operations to new drilling locations “until certain conditions were met.”
Boring Company did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which pays Boring to operate the tunnel system below the Convention Center, said the agency was still reviewing the documents and declined to comment further.
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