Elon Musk's Boring Co., the tunnelling and infrastructure firm, has been accused of violating Nevada's environmental regulations nearly 800 times, even after the company agreed to comply with those laws. The company, which is expanding its tunnel network under Las Vegas, faces these allegations, according to a ProPublica report.
A significant portion of the violations occurred after Boring Co. entered into a 2022 agreement with Nevada regulators to ensure compliance with state environmental laws. Nearly 100 of these infractions happened after the company signed the deal, which was intended to bring it into compliance with environmental regulations.
The violations allegedly include activities like digging without approval, dumping untreated water onto city streets, failing to install silt fences, and tracking dirt from construction sites onto local roadways.
Despite the severity of these violations, Nevada regulators chose not to impose a $3 million fine. Instead, they grouped some violations together and ultimately issued a fine of $242,800. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection stated that the reduced fine remains a reasonable penalty that will help deter future noncompliance.
The Las Vegas tunnel system, which is currently a few miles long, is slated to grow to 68 miles, connecting 104 stations. However, this expansion has not been free of additional challenges. Operations on a tunnel being built by Boring Co. to the Las Vegas airport had to be suspended in September after a worker suffered a crushing injury when they became pinned between two 4,000-foot pipes.
