SpaceX accused of dumping mercury into Texas waters for years

https://www.popsci.com/science/spacex-mercury-water-pollution/

by geox • 2 years ago

67 52 2 years ago

frankharv• 2 years ago

There are people that find something wrong with nothing at all.

""environmental organizations published an open letter voicing anger with the tests while highlighting Starbase’s proximity to indigenous sacred lands""

How dare they get close to indigenous lands.

bdjsiqoocwk• 2 years ago

There are people that find something wrong with nothing at all.

If you think mercury in the water is nothing at all please drink some and report back to us.

avmich• 2 years ago

So is there mercury in the water in dangerous (not just above zero) amounts or not? I don't see that in the article. Can we get things straight?

benopal64• 2 years ago

There is a little-known actor... oh what was his name again? Oh yeah, Martin Sheen-- He narrated a documentary covering the effects of a tribe being downwind from a nuclear testing area. So perhaps there is some understandable concern about being downwind from an Elon Musk-supported facility or any large engineering facility.

Here is a link to a review of the documentary: https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/21/documentary-downwind-...

DemocracyFTW2• 2 years ago

How dare they get close to indigenous lands

Americans have long enough suffered at the hands of those who claim to have ancient or inalienable rights to everything including water, air, and land. It is about time Americans get their act together and take back what is rightfully theirs. /s

olliej2• 2 years ago

Reminds me of the “Indians go back to India”, Jesus was American, etc :D

(I do wonder if there are non-English Christians who also seriously argue “Jesus spoke {my native language here}” - it seems to be a very US evangelical specific thing but I am curious if there are similar non-English groups)

bell-cot• 2 years ago

The article gives no hint as to why there are high levels of mercury in SpaceX's water deluge system.

Elon would not be trying to buff his "Evil Billionaire" rep...right?

mlindner5• 2 years ago

That's because there's the actual texas environmental report doesn't claim high levels of mercury in the samples. The high level comes from a typo of putting the decimal point in the wrong spot.

https://www.tceq.texas.gov/downloads/permitting/wastewater/t...

credit_guy• 2 years ago

You're linking a 483 page document, and I have no idea what typo you are referring to. Can you be more specific?

autoexec3• 2 years ago

This article doesn't, but the one it links to does.

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.

The article also says important information was missing from the application:

Teague, who has more than three decades of water quality and coastal planning experience, told CNBC the application was full of holes, missing basic details about water discharge volumes, the temperature of the effluent and outfall locations.

Qem• 2 years ago

Elon would not be trying to buff his "Evil Billionaire" rep...right?

Elon: the billionaire that promised Mars, but delivered mercury.

mrlonglong• 2 years ago

This is NOT true! I'm no fan of Musk but this is false.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Actual article: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/spacex-repeatedly-polluted-w...

spikels• 2 years ago

SpaceX Responds:

CNBC’s story on Starship’s launch operations in South Texas is factually inaccurate. ... We only use potable (drinking) water in the system’s operation. ... 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. ...

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1823080774012481862

qsdf38100• 2 years ago

SpaceX saying that SpaceX did nothing wrong is a start, but it would be nice to get the same kind of refutation from more independent sources.

aeternum• 2 years ago

You are hereby accused of being a scallywag! You must now stop whatever you're doing and find independent sources to refute the claim.

If only we still believed in burden of proof.

foobarqux8• 2 years ago

This is the comment I made in the other thread [1]:

It's nonsense, for example there is no "I used pure water in the input to the process" exemption; why would there be, the output is what matters. And I believe even unprocessed potable water can be illegal to dump due to the presence of chlorine/fluorine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41229100

mlindner5• 2 years ago

Whether it has chlorine or not depends on the treatment system used. The document states only 0.2 micrograms of chlorine per liter of water.

olliej2• 2 years ago

I think the headline conflates a bunch of things to make clickbait.

It does seems there are accurate and correct complaints about EPA violations, etc at the Boca chica site, and there are also accusations of mercury (and presumably other materials) being detected.

My reading of the article, and the plain text reading of the spacex statement mean I don’t think there’s sufficient factual basis to go from the known EPA violations to “put mercury in the water”.

The regulatory violations seem objectively true, but those regulations are in place because historically that lack of guards led to terrible dumping. So the regulations mean such stuff is detected early and punished if it does happen. However it’s important to realize that the violations in the actual complaint are not “spacex dumped stuff” they are “spacex did not get the required approvals or let us do the testing”. They’re important issues, and need to be addressed, but the issues are very explicitly not “we have reason to believe that there were issues”.

I think a more practical comparison for us normies would be “you had a competent electrician rewire your house or a plumber do significant work without getting a permit or inspection”. In reality for most cases people aren’t trying to have their house catch fire or fill with .. stuff .. but legally you’re required to get permits and inspections.

Those permits and inspections exist to prevent/deter the kinds of people who do try to do substandard work, but you can’t write a law that says “the only people subject to this law are the ones trying to violate it”, so everyone has to do stuff that for most people isn’t necessary.

Alternatively it’s illegal to drive a car without functioning brakes, so in many countries your have to have your car checked annually. Most people aren’t going to drive an unsafe car, but to protect “most” from some, everyone has to get a WOF(or similar).

So my reading of the article is the EPA complaint currently is just “they didn’t follow the approval and testing parts of the regulatory requirements”, nothing more.

The article then brings in a bunch of other allegations that aren’t in the actual EPA complaint to try and put those accusations on the level as the actual complaint, because yay clicks!

It’s quite possible those other allegations are true (because that’s pretty standard corporate behavior - prior corp behaviour is why the EPA and similar exist), but equally they could be false (there’s no additional pollutants), false (the pollutants are there, but from old dumping), false (the pollutants are there but from a different company), etc

Musk is a shitty person, and corporate behavior when awful chemicals are involved is often garbage, but misrepresenting things merely provides ammunition when groups are actually doing illegal stuff to say “look, this is the same lies and BS they wrote here” so I really wish it would stop.

If people want to shit on space Karen they should focus on the awful shit we know he does, there’s no need to invent stuff.

foobarqux8• 2 years ago

The first problem is that if you don't get the permits you aren't allowed to be launching the rockets.

The second problem is he has a history of actually illegally discharging toxins for years (e.g. Fremont paint factory, not far from a school incidentally).

cwillu• 2 years ago

“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.”

BertoldVdb• 2 years ago

How does the mercury get into the water?

mlindner5• 2 years ago

There isn't any significant levels of mercury in the water. The "high level" comes from a typo.

https://www.tceq.texas.gov/downloads/permitting/wastewater/t...

foobarqux8• 2 years ago

It's completely irrelevant: You need to file a permit where you demonstrate that; because not-contaminating water is essential not only for drinking but also all our food sources its integrity doesn't work on a "trust me bro" system.

But given that he has already illegally released toxins for years (at Fremont paint factory), doesn't really give the impression he cares about complying with regulations, presumably didn't do the work necessary for the permitting process, and has a general disregard for process/safety/etc it would be pretty surprising if there weren't illegal levels of substance discharge.

formlessentity2• 2 years ago

Even if it is a typo, isn’t 0.113 above the limit of 0.005?

More than 22x the limit.

Natural gas has significant levels of mercury in it apparently, so it’d make sense to see levels like this.

My other question is how is the environmental report so screwed up? It looks like it’s mostly typos

autoexec3• 2 years ago

Kenneth Teague, a coastal ecologist based outside of Austin, evaluated the 483-page SpaceX permit application. Teague, who has more than three decades of water quality and coastal planning experience, told CNBC the application was full of holes, missing basic details about water discharge volumes, the temperature of the effluent and outfall locations.
Teague said he's especially concerned about the concentration of mercury in the wastewater from the SpaceX water deluge system. The levels disclosed in the document represent "very large exceedances of the mercury water quality criteria," Teague said. (source: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/spacex-repeatedly-polluted-w...)

If you'd like, you can read through the 483 page permit application here: https://www.tceq.texas.gov/downloads/permitting/wastewater/t...

I'm not going to read it all though. Until I hear otherwise from someone qualified who isn't paid by SpaceX I'll just trust the guy with the 30+ years of water quality and coastal planning experience when he says the documented levels are too high and that a lot important data is missing.

jiggawatts4• 2 years ago

This is what dirty politics looks like. This!

Irrespective of how you personally feel about Musk, consider that this is targeting a company with thousands of employees run by… its CEO Glenn Shotwell, not Musk.

SpaceX is terrifying to the competition: both dinosaurs like ULA, and also newcomers like Blue Origin.

The article states: “In total, the Harlingen region received 14 complaints alleging environmental impacts from the Facility’s deluge system.”

Umm… what!? Fourteen? Fourteen locals were wading through the local mud within spitting distance of the launch towers taking what… water samples? It’s tap water! If it has mercury in it then the real article should be about mercury in the tap water!

“I have a complaint to make! Yes I would like to remain anonymous, but you can call me… umm… Beff Jezos. Yes, I’m personally and financially affected by SpaceX activities and would like to file a complaint.”

The popsci article was definitely written by an anti-Musk hack. I seriously wouldn’t surprised if he took a bribe to write a “hit piece”, because if he didn’t he’s doing dirty work for billionaires for free.

We shouldn’t reach for the stars, unless every local office of everything is fully satisfied that all of the paperwork is filed.

Speaking of which: “Neither regulator answered CNBC’s questions regarding SpaceX’s statement.”

You don’t talk about corruption to the media. It’s shameful what they’re doing, otherwise they’d be happy to clarify the issue to the public.

snypher• 2 years ago

were wading through the local mud ... It’s tap water! If it has mercury in it then the real article should be about mercury in the tap water!

On this point, if I have pesticide on my boots and rinse them with potable water, that water now has pesticide in it.

Also, that local mud is also known as a wildlife habitat, so yes, we shouldn't be adding mercury to it.

Also, we can't just throw away Earth for the sake of 'reaching for the stars'. Right now SpaceX is a cell tower installation business, nothing more. I'm not concerned what Elon's "stated goals" are.

jiggawatts4• 2 years ago

At no point did the article make any verified claim about anything in the water other than H2O. The title is fiction.

SpaceX almost certainly uses zero mercury in their rockets, and if they do use tiny amounts, it’ll be a in the electronics and not getting washed into the water in appreciable amounts.

The fuel is natural gas and oxygen. Where’s the mercury coming from!?

foobarqux8• 2 years ago

This is the most basic environmental law there is (don't dump toxins into the river), it's fantasy to construe that as a political hit job.

jiggawatts4• 2 years ago

What toxins? What do you mean by "dumping"?

It is tap water.

lern_too_spel2• 2 years ago

A company run by Shotwell at the pleasure of its voting shareholders, with 78% of those votes cast by Musk.

autoexec3• 2 years ago

Don't worry, it's only a matter of time before the supreme court hamstrings the EPA and the clean water act. Then it won't matter how much mercury is pumped into the water.

ath3nd3• 2 years ago

In other, totally unrelated news: Cancer rates are rising in young people.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41225678

It's a mystery why.

SpaceX accused of dumping mercury into Texas waters for years

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