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SpaceX accused of dumping mercury into Texas waters for years

SpaceX’s Starship launches at the company’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas, have allegedly been contaminating local bodies of water with mercury for years. The news arrives in an exclusive https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/spacex-repeatedly-polluted-waters-in-texas-tceq-epa-found.html on August 12, which cites internal documents and communications between local Texas regulators and the Environmental Protection Agency.

SpaceX’s fourth Starship test launch in June was its most successful so far—but the world’s largest and most powerful rocket ever built continues to wreak havoc on nearby Texas communities, wildlife, and ecosystems. But after repeated admonishments, reviews, and ignored requests, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) have had enough.

iAmTheTot ,

I would be exactly 0% shocked to learn this was true.

ShepherdPie ,

I’d be shocked if Abbott didn’t try to give them a Texas Medal of Freedom award for doing this.

HoustonHenry ,

And for removing water breaks for workers when it’s really hot out

meco03211 ,

Or… I could see him mandating more water breaks… provided it comes from the test area. People in the biz refer to that as remediation.

sp3tr4l ,

Ok so, going to the CNBC article and my own memory, as charitably summarized as I can:

Boca Chica is originally built with certain parameters and specifications, before Musk announced they would be doing all of the testing for Starship at that location.

Then, SpaceX just started doing so, and then asked for permission from relevant regulatory bodies … later.

At this point, Common Sense Skeptic on YouTube did a video or two specifically going into the details of exactly how bonkers it is to do huge scale rocket testing basically half a kilometer away from protected nature zones.

Then, one of the Starship tests blew apart huge parts of the launch pad after Elon had said that would not be a problem.

Then, Elon folded on that notion, and built the water deluge system and modified the launching configuration, without getting any permits beforehand from relevant regulatory agencies.

So the run off from all that water has been going into a protected natural environment for… about a year now.

The EPA began investigating this in August of 2023, and informed SpaceX they were in violation in March of 2024.

Literally the day after SpaceX was formally notified their water deluge system was in violation, SpaceX did its third Starship test, again using the water deluge system.

Now, cue SpaceX lying all over the place, saying that they’ve been told they were allowed to do this the whole time, and that there were no detectable levels of mercury in the discharge, even though their own permit that they belatedly filed indicates the detectable level of mercury in the discharge were about 50x the safe level.

SpaceX said in its response on X that there were “no detectable levels of mercury” found in its samples. But SpaceX wrote in its permit application that its mercury concentration at one outfall location was 113 micrograms per liter. Water quality criteria in the state calls for levels no higher than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute aquatic toxicity and much lower levels for human health.

To conclude:

“Further wastewater discharges could trigger more investigations and criminal charges for the company or any of the people involved in authorizing the launches,” he said.

  • Eric Roesch, Environmental Engineer

Basically, the environmental aspects of this have been a known and ongoing shit show for over a year, but have only been covered by a few YouTube channels and blogs, vastly drowned out by the cacophony of SpaceX fans.

I highly suggest every one check out Common Sense Skeptic on YouTube, they have been calling bullshit on SpaceX for a while now.

In particular, one interesting vid they did shows that a former NASA administrator bullshitted her own request for project process to get it awarded to SpaceX, using blatant double standards.

I say former NASA admin because quite quickly after rubber stamping a huge amount of taxpayer money toward Starship development, she now works for SpaceX.

teamevil ,

Good thing the supreme Court expects companies to not do this shit

Fuckfuckmyfuckingass ,
@Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world avatar

Thank you very much for the synopsis. I am disgusted and unsurprised.

PrincessLeiasCat ,

I’m very curious as to who this NASA admin is…no name comes to mind?

villainy ,

Kathy Lueders

PrincessLeiasCat ,

Thank you!

Wrench ,

Thanks for the summary! Very easy to follow.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but wouldn’t diluting the runoff with more than 1:50 ratio with fresh water fix this problem? If it’s joining a large body of water down the line, wouldn’t that effectively negate the problem?

I don’t know anything about the area or it’s ecosystem. But it seems like being close to protected wilderness is kind of a prerequisite for this kind of thing, because you can’t have human inhabitants nearby. And it seems that logically, large swaths of unoccupied land would be zoned as such until there was a need for some kind of development.

NOT_RICK ,
@NOT_RICK@lemmy.world avatar

What would they even be using mercury for?

acetanilide ,

Elon’s daily dose. It takes a lot to get on his level.

Just kidding, but it seems like something to do with the fuel/exhaust.

I’ve read multiple articles and the most I’ve gotten is that their first launch didn’t have the cleaner fuel that future launches did. I am not sure how that would cause repeated incidents… perhaps it’s from metal parts in the rockets? 🤔 I could have missed something as I was reading but hopefully someone else will know the answer.

Peppycito ,

If that kind of shit gets released on the ground, what gets released into the upper atmosphere?

Atrichum ,

CO2 and water. The rocket fuel is not the source of the mercury.

Peppycito ,

The pumps need to be running full bore before ignition and keep running after cut off. Watch a video of shut off and tell me where they’re keeping all that CO^2 and water on the rocket.

Atrichum ,

Cleaner fuel? It’s oxygen and methane. Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, no mercury. Still I can’t think of a source.

acetanilide ,

The article I read said they didn’t use that until after the first launch. I did not look into it further.

cannibalkitteh ,

Dumping into the water. It is an overall expense, and not related to the business interests. They just needed some evil villain stuff going on because Elon really wants to meet Captain Planet.

MegaUltraChicken ,

Elon probably picked up old timey hat making during one of his ketamine binges or something.

NegativeInf ,

That would mean that Elon has any amount of skill.

I very much doubt it.

Fester ,

Oh it just means he acquired a servant that has 30+ years experience in old timey hat making. But he’s rich, so we speak as if it’s him that’s doing it.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Where did Captain Planet go when he wasn’t summoned?

Iheartcheese ,
@Iheartcheese@lemmy.world avatar

Sawcon.

jonne ,

If you make earth unlivable you can sell 8 billion tickets to Mars.

TransplantedSconie ,

Is he sure about that? Cap doesn’t fuck around.

casmael ,

Slippery consistency helps the highest bidder to slide up Elon’s bumhole more easily and efficiently. What you really want in this situation is a low energy threshold for financial turnover - in this case the point at which dollar bills are more than 50% up musks arse. Mercury gets that done, and Elon likes the taste, but unfortunately on this occasion it got into the water supply which is sad to see.

treadful ,
@treadful@lemmy.zip avatar

Pretty annoying the article doesn’t even explain.

Dramaking37 ,

Texas government probably requires you poison people to operate in the State.

casmael ,

Naturally. If people forget to turn off the poison sockets before bed, that’s their own problem!

frezik ,

When sending probes to Mars or other rocky bidies, NASA is very careful about biological contamination. They don’t want to seed the planet with some extremophile, or contaminate their own samples and mistakenly think it’s native life.

When SpaceX wants to go to Mars and is also doing this shit, why should we trust them to take the same care?

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe people will finally stop praising SpaceX?

masterspace ,

I mean, it depends how egregious / serious this violation is and how crucial it is to the rest of their overall successes.

Elon sucks, but for the same amount of money, NASA can either launch 150 tons of science missions 1 per year on SLS, or they can launch 170 tons of science missions every 2 weeks on Starship.

Quite frankly I don’t understand why they’ve gotten the level of hate they’ve gotten (and why some people seem so intent on finding ways to hate them), other than their association with their dumbass ceo.

pennomi ,

SpaceX is cool, Elon is the world’s most colossal asshole. Some people won’t separate the two because they rightfully don’t want to enable him.

Shotwell could run the whole thing herself, I wish the government would step in and cut Musk out of it entirely.

masterspace ,

People who blame the thousands of hard working engineers at SpaceX for Elon’s follies are committing the exact same logical fallacies as the people who hero worship him and praise him for what is the hard work of all those engineers.

It’s very easy to say in one sentence that Elon sucks and what SpaceX is doing is pretty wild and revolutionary, yet people like the OP I’m responding to seem bothered by even that.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Elon sucks, but for the same amount of money, NASA can either launch 150 tons of science missions 1 per year on SLS, or they can launch 170 tons of science missions every 2 weeks on Starship.

Maybe the latter is like, bad for the planet?

www.statesman.com/story/news/…/74171065007/

masterspace ,

Hmm, did you read that article before posting it?

Because Im struggling to see how Starship, a fully reusable spaceship made out of stainless steel, is going to deplete the ozone the way that aluminum satellites do when they are deorbited and burned up…

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

What exactly do you think SpaceX is regularly launching into space? Because it isn’t Starship.

masterspace ,

You literally quoted me talking about Starship, and the article OP linked is about Starship.

SpaceX is going to launch the ~4000 satellites it has permits for, starship doesn’t change that in any way shape or form.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

or they can launch 170 tons of science missions every 2 weeks on Starship.

Your words? Because, again, it’s not Starship they’re launching every two weeks.

masterspace ,

Yes, it is. That is using their projected budget and the launch cadence that’s possible with both SLS and Starship. SLS can at most launch twice a year, Starship will be able to launch every two weeks, and costs orders of magnitude less.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

And meanwhile, SpaceX will destroy the ozone layer with endless Starlink launches, so maybe let’s not praise them, like I initially said?

masterspace ,

My god. What do you do for a living? Does it have no effect on the environment in any way shape or form?

They literally just discovered that Starlink satellites are having that effect, and you have given them precisely zero time to even try and address and fix it. And in the meantime I literally just came back from a remote first Nations community that only has high quality internet because of it, amongst virtually every rural community in the world.

Honestly, disconnect yourself from the internet before you spend any time looking into the environmental impact of your phone, the servers you use, and the billions of miles of fibre optic cables that connect everything. Because if that’s the kind of blood that prevents you from praising a company that is literally revolutionizing space launch, then literally nothing any of us ever do is worth praising because it’s all built on a giant foundation of blood.

Peppycito ,

Do you know what the clouds coming out of the engines at shut down and start up are? Methane and oxygen. Do you think injecting methane into the upper atmosphere does the earth any favours?

johker216 ,

I’d rather NASA be funded well enough to not need private, profit-driven, corporations dictating how we explore space. That and Musk’s stench sticks to all his companies, for good or bad.

masterspace ,

They literally are.

That’s what SLS is, a rocket built by NASA using their traditional contractors and it costs orders of magnitude more to do the literal exact same thing.

Again, I get that Musk sucks, but hating on the hardwork of thousands of engineers and personnel because of what one of the employees does in their free time is just as biased as everyone who irrationally praises Musk for what is the hardwork of thousands.

The folly of hero worship cuts both ways.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

SLS does it the old way, with NASA contracting work out to the old school companies.

The Commercial Crew and Supply contracts are there to try it a different way. And they’re accomplishing their goals much more quickly and at a fraction of the cost.

EldritchFeminity , (edited )

There’s a great synopsis of the situation further up the thread, but the short is:

SpaceX originally wasn’t going to launch rockets from this facility… until they announced that they were, then asked for permission from the regulatory bodies after their first launch.

When concerns were raised about the rockets being launched half a kilometer from nature preservation land, and specifically in regard to the possibility of failed launches damaging the launchpad, Elon assured them that no such thing could happen… and then a quarter of the launchpad was destroyed by a failed launch.

So they installed the water deluge system, again asking for permission after they had already installed and used it.

Within their permit application for the system - which, again, was installed and used before the application was even submitted - are mercury measurements 50x higher than the Texas maximum threshold for acute mercury toxicity, and far higher than the thresholds for human safety.

The Elon hate is one thing, and I believe much of the hate for SpaceX is because of how he handles himself and his companies. But the general assurance has largely been that SpaceX has a team of handlers to keep him from screwing things up, and it sounds more like Boeing over there every day.

They may have Elon on a leash, but they seem to be running his playbook anyway.

Atrichum ,

SpaceX fans have known about this for a long time now, and they just don’t care. They’ve shouted down anyone who has pointed it out for well over a year now

LEDZeppelin ,

Don’t just blame Elon/ SpaSex, blame Texas republicans for allowing this “California Elite” to poison Texas water

ArbitraryValue ,

The article has no details about the mercury beyond what is in the title. The specific issues it does talk about are things like water runoff, noise that frightens animals, and even “proximity to indigenous sacred lands” which are all, to be frank, trivial. Mercury (in significant amounts) is a problem. But a rocket making noise? Yeah, they do that.

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

They also do that in Florida. Where many of the pads are in a conservation area. Launching from those types of areas isn’t new, rocket launches are a well known impact.

Don’t ever see anyone talking about the NASA launch sites when these things are brought up. Always seems to be articles where the SpaceX stuff is in a vacuum and no one else launches or has launch pads to compare against.

Not saying that contamination shouldn’t be researched, just that much of the reporting seems to have a motivation behind it that isn’t what it claims to be.

Cosmonauticus ,

What about the uproar between native Hawaiians and Nasa over observatories being built on sacred native land? It’s not launch pads but Nasa has definitely pissed ppl off

halcyoncmdr ,
@halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world avatar

I never said they didn’t piss people off. But we’re talking about concerns at a launch site. An observatory and a launch site have nearly zero in common.

Atrichum ,

Because NASA treats its waste water like every other sane responsible rocket company or government agency.

socphoenix ,

The original cnbc report linked in the article posted states their application asked for 113 micrograms per liter of mercury for discharge. Texas considers 2.1 to be toxic to aquatic life and less than that for human life.

They also mention their application didn’t mention the temperature of the water discharge which could also be a problem if we are trying not to boil the wildlife near the pad.

Spitzspot ,
@Spitzspot@lemmings.world avatar

Can we revoke his government contracts now?

TTimo ,

Why is there mercury in the deluge water? Where is it coming from? It’s not ‘regular water’ somehow?

Gsus4 , (edited )

And to think it took this much self-inflicted falling from grace before it became admissible to point that “boy genius”'s enterprises should be prosecuted as much as anybody else for wrongdoing.

InternetUser2012 ,

Drop the hammer on them.

JimSamtanko ,

That explains a lot.

DaddleDew ,

I can see why Elon hates government regulatory bodies.

How dare they stop him poisoning millions of people and entire ecosystems, causing irreparable damage just so he can save a few bucks on waste disposal fees? This is so unfair!

casmael ,

Extremely not based >:(

SeekPie ,

Cringe, some might say

MediaBiasFactChecker Bot ,

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