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.
I would be exactly 0% shocked to learn this was true.
I’d be shocked if Abbott didn’t try to give them a Texas Medal of Freedom award for doing this.
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.
Would you be more shocked to learn that it isn’t true? It is possible that this entire story is based on two typos in the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality report.
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted (although you’re username would certainly give the impression you’re just defending musk).
The information you linked to does indeed cast doubt on the validity of the report. Corrected information will be needed before concrete conclusions can be drawn.
I hate Musk as much as the next person, and definitely wouldn’t be surprised if he was dumping chemicals in the water. But that doesn’t mean we should let confirmation bias cloud our ability to think critically.
It could be that they mod all the musk communities and are an elon stan but more than likely it’s because they’ve plastered the same comment over 14 times with now llama taking over who is also an active user in the same communities making it seem like brigading. If the case was stated in a single comment it might be upvoted more than others, at this point they’re just spamming anyone who comments regardless of the context.
I’m all for putting your truth out there, but it just seems like they’re trying to drown out everyone with a “nuh uh, believe me” over letting the facts play out. It’s not like this thread is gonna have any real impact on the company or perception at this point no matter what anyone says.
Here is the actual application. Typo is on page 79, the actual figure is in the appendix on page 177.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe they should have had the water system ready before the full test just in case.
Like someone concerned about health and safety would do.
Why would you wait to have something else ready if you think what you have is going to work?
All the physics modeling they did and live tests showed that the concrete should work.
When it looks like something should work, you test it. They had approval to test it after showing it should work.
These people are launching and landing rockets at a pace never done before, they know how to model these kind of things. Now obviously something went very wrong here, but it wasn’t just a willy nilly choice.
You test the things that you think will work, otherwise you never know if they’ll work.
While the concrete may not have been their final decision for Boca Chica, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a possible solution for other location where a large quantity of potable water isn’t available.
Edit: just further to possible other locations, the concrete if it worked, wouldn’t allow the rapid turn around time they want as they’d need to set new concrete vs piped water ready to go. But for a launch location that maybe wouldn’t need the rapid cadence, maybe it’d be perfect and cheaper if it’d work.
Yes, thats what SpaceX is saying.
As of right now, the original blurb I quoted from the CNBC article has been modified to this:
SpaceX said in its response on X that there were “no detectable levels of mercury” found in its samples. But SpaceX wrote in its July permit application — under the header Specific Testing Requirements - Table 2 for Outfall: 001 — 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
CNBC is currently sticking with their report. This is not factually inaccurate information, it is a clarification, a specification.
Perhaps SpaceX could actually provide evidence that they submitted a version with the typo fixed, that TCEQ is ‘currently updating the application’, or that other lab tests corroborate that the 0.113 number?
Either way, doesn’t change the number of complaints the TCEQ received, that SpaceX was releasing deluge water for roughly a year without permission to do so, that they were told to stop doing that and then did it again literally the next day.
They also wrote <0.113 on table 16 at the same outfall.
Table 2 and 16 also have 139 and 0.139 for sample 2, reversed so T2: (113/0.139) T16: (<0.113/139)
No matter how you look at it, that’s extremely shoddy reporting by CNBC. Whoever wrote that report also needs to have a long chat with their supervisor.
Also SpaceX claims they had permission to do it based on existing rules they are under, AND TCEQ was there to help with the first test even. The EPA had factually incorrect information when they requested they stop, and then gave the A-OKAY once SpaceX corrected their misunderstandings.
edit: Selenium also goes from 2.86 to 28.6 on sample 1
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When sending probes to Mars or other rocky bodies, 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?
Planetary Protection is one of my absolute FAVORITE can of worms!! Obviously it is a good idea to be careful and mindful, but I personally believe that NASA’s current policies are complete overkill.
Let’s think this through. Why don’t we want to bring earth life to another world?
Maybe because then we won’t be able to tell whether it is indigenous or not? Baloney! Imagine you accidentally bring a lizard to an island that doesn’t have them. If it is indigenous, there would be evidence of them being there in the past, through fossils or otherwise!
Maybe we don’t want to infect any life that is on that other planet, that earth life could take over that ecosystem like an invasive species? Astronomically unlikely. All earth life is evolved to live in its specific environment and to interact with the species with which it has evolved alongside. As such, totally unrelated organisms form different planets would be so completely alien to each other that they would be unlikely to interact to begin with. Additionally Mars, for example, definitively has no macro-fauna or flora. As such, any possible microbes on Mars would be completely at a loss on how to interact with humans or indeed any earth life.
Finally, Earth and Mars, for example, exchange ~500 kilograms of material every year. Analysis shows that some of that material never exceeded a temperature high enough for sterilization. Thus, if there was any life on mars, it would have reached us by now, living in our biosphere along with us.
Anyways I’m a big nerd and I hope this stuff is interesting!
Maybe we don’t want to infect any life that is on that other planet, that earth life could take over that ecosystem like an invasive species? Astronomically unlikely
If you were to pick out any one microorganism and try to get it to grow on Mars without any support, you’re right that it would probably die off. If you were to take a pile of random dirt full of microorganisms and drop it on Mars, they would also probably all die off. But if you keep doing this a lot with dirt and rocks from many different environments on Earth, you may eventually find one that thrives.
There are organisms that carve out some tiny evolutionary niche until they have just the right conditions, and then explode. For example, Ideonella sakaiensis eats PET plastics. It was sitting around doing its thing for millions or billions of years, and then we gave it a place to thrive with all our plastic junk.
There are places on Earth that have some similarities to Mars. It’s quite possible something would survive there.
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.
I mean they are referred to as conservatives because of their predominantly archaic social and economical laws not because they conserve the ecology
Their politics are not conservative. They are inflammatory and extremist.
And you just know Texas lawmakers were fine with this because the right people got paid off to look the other way by Musk.
The dangers of mercury poisoning are well understood. We’re talking about insanity, paralysis and death. Nobody can pull a, “we had no idea” excuse. Google “Minimata Japan disaster” if you want to know what happens when a corporation poisons people with mercury for nearly 40 years.
