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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.

Burn_The_Right ,

TCEQ has no power to enforce anything in Texas without the Governor and AG’s cooperation. Mark my words. As long as Texas is run by conservatives, absolutely nothing at all will be done to protect the environment in Texas. Absolutely nothing. Everything related to the environment is performative in Texas, not substantive.

Conservatives delight in pollution. They equate pollution with freedom. Conservatives in Texas intentionally choose vehicles with the worst exhaust, they litter, they dump chemicals directly down drains, into sewers and into waterways, they “roll coal”, they joyfully embrace chemical plants and they mock absolutely anyone who has any problem with dirty air or water. If you can’t handle chemical-laden air, you are considered weak or “librul”. Clean water is for pussies.

There’s a reason the number one cancer research center in the U.S. is based in Houston. The air is famously polluted by nearby refineries that do not report what they release into the air to the public. They are permitted to “self-report” that they are not violating any rules, but there is no actual check performed by TCEQ without a great deal of advance notice and preparation.

Texas is a conservative haven of airborne and waterborne carcinogens. Musk knew that when he moved here. That’s the reason polluters move here. Because conservatives fucking love pollution.

When I hear of a conservative in Texas getting a brutal form of cancer, I just smile and nod because I presume they’ve achieved their goal. It’s the only silver lining in Texas, other than the silver-laden clouds.

WalnutLum ,

Eric Roesch did a number of blog posts on this issue throughout 2023.

Glad it’s only taken a year for the rest of the news media to get their head out of their ass.

ZealousSealion ,

Worker’s rights transgressions? Yes. Bulldozing a frog pond? Yes. Dumping mercury? No, that makes no sense. I can’t see where mercury would be introduced in any meaningful quantities.

NotMyOldRedditName , (edited )

SpaceX has replied to the CNBC report

x.com/SpaceX/status/1823080774012481862

For those not wanting to click an X link

CNBC’s story on Starship’s launch operations in South Texas is factually inaccurate.

Starship’s water-cooled flame deflector system is critical equipment for SpaceX’s launch operations. It ensures flight safety and protects the launch site and surrounding area.

Also known as the deluge system, it applies clean, potable (drinking) water to the engine exhaust during static fire tests and launches to absorb the heat and vibration from the rocket engines firing. Similar equipment has long been used at launch sites across the United States – such as Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Stations in Florida, and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California – and across the globe.

SpaceX worked with the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) throughout the build and test of the water deluge system at Starbase to identify a permit approach. TCEQ personnel were onsite at Starbase to observe the initial tests of the system in July 2023, and TCEQ’s website shows that SpaceX is covered by the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit.

When the EPA issued their Administrative Order in March 2024, it was done without an understanding of basic facts of the deluge system’s operation or acknowledgement that we were operating under the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit.

After we explained our operation to the EPA, they revised their position and allowed us to continue operating, but required us to obtain an Individual Permit from TCEQ, which will also allow us to expand deluge operations to the second pad. We’ve been diligently working on the permit with TCEQ, which was submitted on July 1st, 2024. TCEQ is expected to issue the draft Individual Permit and Agreed Compliance Order this week.

Throughout our ongoing coordination with both TCEQ and the EPA, we have explicitly asked if operation of the deluge system needed to stop and we were informed that operations could continue.

TCEQ and the EPA have allowed continued operations because the deluge system has always complied with common conditions set by an Individual Permit, and causes no harm to the environment. Specifically:

  • We only use potable (drinking) water in the system’s operation. At no time during the operation of the deluge system is the potable water used in an industrial process, nor is the water exposed to industrial processes before or during operation of the system.
  • The launch pad area is power-washed prior to activating the deluge system, with the power-washed water collected and hauled off.
  • The vast majority of the water used in each operation is vaporized by the rocket’s engines.
  • We send samples of the soil, air, and water around the pad to an independent, accredited laboratory after every use of the deluge system, which have consistently shown negligible traces of any contaminants. Importantly, while CNBC’s story claims there are “very large exceedances of the mercury” as part of the wastewater discharged at the site, all samples to-date have in fact shown either no detectable levels of mercury whatsoever or found in very few cases levels significantly below the limit the EPA maintains for drinking water.
  • Retention ponds capture excess water and are specially lined to prevent any mixing with local groundwater. Any water captured in these ponds, including water from rainfall events, is pumped out and hauled off.
  • Finally, some water does leave the area of the pad, mostly from water released prior to ignition and after engine shutdown or launch. To give you an idea of how much: a single use of the deluge system results in potable water equivalent to a rainfall of 0.004 inches across the area outside the pad which currently averages around 27 inches of rain per year.

With Starship, we’re revolutionizing humanity’s ability to access space with a fully reusable rocket that plays an integral role in multiple national priorities, including returning humans to the surface of the Moon. SpaceX and its thousands of employees work tirelessly to ensure the United States remains the world’s leader in space, and we remain committed to working with our local and federal partners to be good stewards of the environment.

Tja ,

Water is hauled off… where? Beyond the environment?

NotMyOldRedditName ,

Probably to a proper treatment facility like all other potentially bad water goes.

Burn_The_Right ,

It’s OK. There’s a creek down the road that doesn’t have any fish left. It goes right out to the gulf, so it’s all good.

threelonmusketeers ,

while CNBC’s story claims there are “very large exceedances of the mercury” as part of the wastewater discharged at the site, all samples to-date have in fact shown either no detectable levels of mercury whatsoever or found in very few cases levels significantly below the limit the EPA maintains for drinking water.

I think this discrepancy may have been caused by a typo in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

Wow.

I wonder what CNBC is gonna say about that.

That’s pretty embarrassing if that’s what happened partially triggering this article.

Also that poor person who wrote the report up is probably going to get an earful too now.

Burn_The_Right ,

Texas allows pollutors to self-report in “good faith”. Why would we give any credence at all to a self-report (or hired self-report)?

If the EPA or TCEQ didn’t measure it themselves during an unscheduled visit, then all measurements should be disregarded.

Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In ,

we have explicitly asked if operation of the deluge system needed to stop

If that question is being asked then maybe it should be stopped.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

What a weird take to make.

They are constantly in talks with these people. They probably ask this exact question every time they’ve used it and sent them more data about it.

Should you stop eating? I think you better since the question is being asked!

index ,

Guess what, sending rocket in orbit is one of the most polluting business out there and most of it it’s done for business

FilthyShrooms ,

Is it? As far as I can tell rocket launches don’t cause that much pollution compared to a coal powerplant, or the hundreds of daily airline flights.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

Cargo ships are probably up there as some of the worst. They burn copious amounts of really dirty fuel.

PlutoniumAcid ,
@PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world avatar

Yup. They burn heavy bunker fuel - the sludge that is too bad to be used for anything else.

Considering the amount of shipping, it’s horrendous.

But - and there’s always another view - I don’t know how much energy you’d need to use to haul that much cargo by other means like rail and trucks. One container ship carries as much as a thousand trains could carry. Vessels are really, really large, which make them quite effective.

cows_are_underrated ,

And trains can’t cross Oceans. Even tho that cargo ships need a shit load of fuel it isn’t that much per ton of cargo due to the efficiency and sheer mass they are carrying

drunkpostdisaster ,

It’s what they voted for.

Kowowow ,

I wish some good old boys would force musk and his lackeys to drink and swim in that water, it’s the right thing to do and rase them much higher in my eyes

Binette ,

Yo gen alpha with mercury in their brains?

TTimo ,

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

threelonmusketeers ,

That confused me as well. It seems possible that this entire story is based on two typos in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report.

JimSamtanko ,

That explains a lot.

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?

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!

sp3tr4l ,

Ah you beat me to it, I stepped away for dinner =P

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.

sp3tr4l ,

I am far from an expert on the toxicity of mercury (and that’s nearly certainly just one kind of pollutant in this scenario), but it seems unlikely this would solve the problem.

The same amount of mercury is still being emitted, it just might lessen the amount that gets absorbed by immediately local soil… and just disperse it a bit more evenly over a longer range eventually mostly pooling along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

Which… is still part of a protected natural environment with endangered species living in it. As I recall, there is specifically a species of endangered turtles that live in this area, so, they’re still fucked, along with I think some other endangered birds, reptile and small mammals.

What they should have is a proper method of containing this dirty water, filtering and extracting dangerous chemicals, and a proper way of disposing those.

But that would require foresight and planning, which is anathema to Musk’s ‘move fast and break stuff’ style of ‘rapid iteration’.

Also, It is not true that large sections of uninhabited land are necessarily zoned as some kind of protected habitat. It is true there are lots of areas of the US where this is the case, but not totally.

Musk was trying desperately to get NASA to let him use Cape Canaveral for Starship, but they viewed this (correctly, in hindsight) as too risky.

So, when they said no, and he had deadlines to meet, basically said ‘fuck it’, took his existing facility and massively illegally upgraded it far beyond what was legally allowed by initial use permits, and just did everything Starship there, generally completely ignoring any concept of ‘regulations’ that might apply to this.

He could have actually given investors and NASA themselves more realistic budget and timeframe ideas for how expensive and time consuming it would be to do this properly, but he did not.

threelonmusketeers ,

What they should have is a proper method of containing this dirty water, filtering and extracting dangerous chemicals, and a proper way of disposing those.

It is also important to note that the dirtiness of the water may have been misreported. It seems possible that this story is based on two typos in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report. The actual concentration of mercury may be 1000x lower.

FabledAepitaph ,

One of the fundamental principals of the RCRA is that dilution is not an allowable solution to pollution. Otherwise, you could just say that any amount of pollution is below applicable concentrations after it mixed into the oceans, atmosphere, whatever. And any company could emit as much as they wanted as long as they diluted it. Oil spills could simply be left alone because they’d eventually distribute throughout the earth.

Concentrations must be considered as they occur in their process streams. The process stream must meet certain requirements first and foremost, and it must be further checked to see if that could significantly affect the air or water in which it is emitted, just to make sure its good to go since water flow, temperature, and wildlife migration change throughout the year. The same is true for air emissions as well.

sp3tr4l ,

Thank you for some more specific commentary on this.

I had a gut feeling that uh… reverse homeopathy probably is not a legitimate methodology to approach environmental toxins with.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

Just a small correction about the pad exploding/water deluge system.

They were already working on the water deluge system before the pad blew up. They simply didn’t think it was going to explode like that since it worked as expected during the half thrust test, and the water system wasn’t ready yet.

Raiderkev ,

Don’t worry, with the Chevron ruling out of the way, this can be thrown out in court and promptly swept under the rug. 💪🇺🇲🦅

threelonmusketeers ,

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.

Upon closer inspection, it seems possible that this discrepancy is based on two typos in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report. The actual value may be closer to 0.113 micrograms per liter, not 113.

threelonmusketeers , (edited )

I highly suggest every one check out Common Sense Skeptic on YouTube

They lost their credibility as soon as they started hating on Musk for clicks and views. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of valid criticism of Musk, but criticizing anything and everything related to Musk no matter what has become Common Sense Skeptic’s entire brand and business strategy. I don’t think they can be considered an unbiased party.

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!

LifeInMultipleChoice ,

If we are going to say that foreign members can’t own large media companies aka Tiktok, maybe we could expand it to all media companies to ensure a certain Australian has to sell his, and government contracts all be required to be owned by naturalized americans as well. Seems like they have proven are a huge threat and have violated multiple factors of our government/ laws

Gsus4 , (edited )
@Gsus4@mander.xyz avatar

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.

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