Monday October 28, 2024
Mountain View Voice —
Tesla Motors last week dumped more than 500 gallons of water-treatment chemicals that it uses to cool its supercomputer into a storm drain near Matadero Creek, prompting a cleanup effort at the creek and in the nearby Ventura neighborhood, according to local and state officials.
The spill occurred at about 5 p.m. on Oct. 17, according to a hazardous spills report issued by the governor’s Office of Emergency Services. While the office could not say how much of the mixture was released and how much of it affected the creek, the Palo Alto Fire Department recovered 550 gallons of the mixture from the storm drain, the report stated.
The report attributes the discharge of chemicals to “human error,” and notes that the incident occurred while Tesla personnel were draining the system. The car company last year opened its engineering headquarters in Stanford Research Park, at a Page Mill Road site formerly occupied by HP.
The Palo Alto Fire Department responded last week to what was described as a “hazardous materials incident” at 1501 Page Mill Road. The containment and cleanup work in the industrial area around Tesla headquarters was completed fairly quickly, according to the city. But Fire Department officials then identified areas east of the spill area near Park Boulevard, Lambert Avenue and Ash Street, for remediation and additional clean-up, said Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, the city’s chief communications officer. That work is expected to stretch into next week.