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 CNBCreport 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.
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.
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.
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.
Because NASA treats its waste water like every other sane responsible rocket company or government agency.
They don’t treat launch water, it runs off into the wetlands through open ditches. The SRBs that the Shuttle and SLS use are 100-ton bricks of perchlorates that contaminate and acidify water for miles every time there’s a launch, so treating the direct runoff is deck chairs on the Titanic. Kennedy Space Center is already a Superfund site, so they focus on things like underwater fencing to stop KSC fish full of teflon and cadmium from being eaten by normal fish.
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
