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Nevada regulators have accused Elon Musk’s boring company of violating environmental regulations nearly 800 times over the past two years as it excavates a vast network of tunnels beneath Las Vegas for a Tesla-powered “people mover.” New documents obtained by Citycast Las Vegas and ProPublica say the company’s alleged violations include starting drilling without a permit, discharging untreated water onto city streets, and discharging sewage from trucks.
A cease-and-desist letter from the state Water Pollution Control Board, dated Sept. 22, alleges the company repeatedly violated a settlement agreement it reached five years ago after being fined for discharging groundwater into storm drains without a permit. The agreement, signed by Boring executives in 2022, was intended to force the company to comply with state water pollution laws.
Instead, state inspectors documented about 100 new alleged violations of the agreement. The letter also accuses the company of failing to hire an independent environmental manager to regularly inspect the construction site. State regulators counted 689 missed tests.
Boring Co. disputes the violation letter, according to a state spokesperson.
The Nevada Department of Environmental Protection could have fined the company more than $3 million under a 2022 agreement that allowed it to levy fines on a daily basis. However, regulators reduced the total fine to $242,800. For example, although the majority of the total potential fines are related to suspected inspection failures, the agency chose to impose only a $10,000 fine on each of the company’s 11 permits.
“Given the unusually high number of violations, NDEP has decided to exercise its discretion to reduce the fine to $5,000 for two violations per permit. We believe this is a reasonable fine that will still help deter future violations,” the regulator said in the letter.
A state spokesperson said no fines would be required to be paid until the dispute resolution process is completed. In the letter, the agency reminded the company that it “reserves the right to instruct TBC to cease and desist construction activities” under the agreement.
Mr. Musk has previously supported paying fines rather than waiting for approval as a way to do business.
“In my opinion, environmental regulations are generally terrible,” he said last year at an event with the liberal Cato Institute. “Rather than paying a fine if you do something wrong, you have to get permission beforehand. I think it’s much more effective.”
Neither Musk nor Boling responded to requests for comment on this story.
The Sept. 22 letter documents the latest in a series of alleged violations of state and local regulations by The Boring Company since it began construction in 2019 on the Loop project, which uses driver-operated Teslas to move people through tunnels. The project, originally a 1.3-mile subway route interconnecting sections of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority campus, has grown to a planned 108 miles of tunnels and 104 stations across the Las Vegas Valley. This will be carried out in partnership with the tourism agency LVCVA, best known for its slogan ‘What happens here stays here’.
Boring uses a machine known as a Prufrock to dig a 12-foot diameter tunnel and applies a chemical accelerator as part of the process. For every foot the company excavates, it removes about six cubic yards of soil along with groundwater, according to company documents prepared for state environmental officials.
Because the project is privately funded and receives no federal aid, it is exempt from many thorough government review and environmental analysis requirements. However, they will need state permits to ensure the waste does not contaminate the environment or local water sources.
A January article by ProPublica and CityCast Las Vegas documented how the company worked to evade county and state oversight requirements by claiming noncompliance with existing regulations and promising to be held accountable through independent audits while being cited for permit violations and water pollution in 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Last year, the company successfully lobbied for the county’s “entertainment venue” exemption. “Transportation Systems” permits, claims instead required a monitoring plan that removed multiple layers of inspection.
Workers have complained of chemical burns from waste generated during the tunnel excavation process, and firefighters must decontaminate equipment after extricating them from the project site. The company was fined more than $112,000 by the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration in late 2023 after workers complained of “ankle-deep” water, mud spills and burn injuries in the tunnel. Boring Co. disputed the violations. Just last month, a construction worker suffered a “crush injury” after being pinned between two 4,000-foot-tall pipes, according to police records. Firefighters used a crane to rescue the man from the tunnel opening.
After ProPublica and Citycast Las Vegas published articles in January, both the CEO and LVCVA board chairman criticized the reports, insisting that the project was well regulated. As an example, LVVCA CEO Steve Hill cited delays in opening Loop stations by local authorities who were concerned that fire safety requirements were not sufficient. Board Chairman Jim Gibson, who is also a Clark County commissioner, agreed that the project is properly regulated.
“If I had determined that this is not the way things should be and that is the way they should be for public safety reasons, I would not have approved it,” Gibson said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Our sense is that we did what we had to do to protect our people.”
Asked for a response to the new proposed fines, an LVCVA spokesperson said: “We are not participating in this discussion.”
Ben Leffel, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said repeated allegations that the company is violating regulations, including the custom regulatory agreements it has agreed to, show authorities are not protecting public safety.
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“It’s different if they’re repeating nearly the same offense,” Leffel said.
Leffel questioned whether the $250,000 fine was enough to change The Boring Company’s operations, which will be valued at $7 billion in 2023. Research shows that fines that do not significantly impact a company’s bottom line will not deter companies from committing future violations, Leffel said.
A state spokesperson disagreed that regulators were not keeping the public safe and said the agency believed the penalties would deter “future violations.”
“NDEP is actively monitoring and inspecting the project,” the spokesperson said.
