In a reminder of how toxic chip manufacturing is, Samsung managed to kill virtually all aquatic life in an Austin tributary after spilling 763,000 gallons of sulfuric acid waste into a stormwater pond.
As CBS Austin reports, the spillage occurred at the Samsung Austin Semiconductor facility over a period of 106 days. The stormwater pond fed into a nearby unnamed tributary of the Harris Branch Creek in Northeast Austin. The spill was discovered and stopped by Samsung on Jan. 14, and the company has now retained an environmental engineering company to help minimize the impact.
The Watershed Protection Department (WPD) confirmed that there is, “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.” That’s not surprising when you discover the tributary had a pH level of between three and four.
In a memorandum sent to the Austin Mayor and Council, the WPD says an investigation into the impacts of the spill are underway and all documents will be shared with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TECQ). Thankfully, the pH level had returned to near normal levels (6.7 to 8.5) by Jan. 19 and the main branch of the Harris Branch Creek remains unaffected.
Samsung has taken the stormwater pond out of service and is carrying out a remediation process. The WPD will inspect the pond for integrity once the process is complete and perform weekly surveys on the tributary to monitor the water quality. After that, Samsung will need to ensure such a spill can’t happen again as well as aiding the process of bringing aquatic life back to the tributary as quickly as possible.
