Parents at an elementary school next to Tesla’s Fremont car plant want more time to question a plan that could raise emissions from the factory, Matthew Brown reported for SFGate.

Lila Bringhurst Elementary sits less than 1,000 feet from the plant. Tesla has applied to change emission limits on two aluminium melting furnaces and add new equipment to cut nitrogen oxides, according to a notice from the Bay Area Air District.

“It was sort of obfuscating”

The notice reached parents in a single school app message on 3 September. It said limits would be modified, but not that they could go up, parents said.

“It was sort of obfuscating,” parent Jenny Lin told SFGate.

Many only took notice after an anonymous Substack post on 1 October. Using the district’s own engineering papers, it claimed one measure of emissions would rise thirteenfold. Parts of the review were blacked out, including limits the district would place on Tesla.

The district told SFGate it must redact trade secrets, and would check the documents for errors.

Not all dust is equal

The thirteenfold figure covers all suspended particles, including harmless ones. Much of that is larger dust that does not enter the body, said Nicholas Spada, an air quality researcher at UC Davis.

He still called the jump “significant”.

The district says the estimates stay within its limits, and it would require continuous monitoring on the furnaces.

A petition asking it to extend the comment period, which ended on Monday, passed 1,000 signatures. The plant is already under investigation by the district over allegedly inaccurate emissions reports.

Tesla did not respond to SFGate’s request for comment.