SpaceX tries to wash away Texas pollution allegations

Elon Musk: Aiming for Mars, but sometimes ends up with Mercury?

Updated Elon Musk's SpaceX is disputing claims that its rockets are polluting water in Texas from the deluge system used to stop Starship ripping up its launchpad on lift-off.

Specifically, those claims are that SpaceX has been violating environmental regulations by discharging pollutants into or near bodies of water in Texas. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is said to have received 14 complaints alleging environmental impacts from SpaceX's deluge system.

SpaceX was forced to add that water system to Starship's ground systems after the first launch tore chunks out of the launch pad and flung debris, including concrete chunks, over a wide area, CNBC reports.

Other heavy-lift rockets, including NASA's Space Shuttle and the Ariane 6, use the same mechanism to help suppress noise and protect the launch pad. No doubt, in the spirit of moving fast and breaking stuff, SpaceX opted not to implement such a system for the first Starship launch and, er, broke stuff. A water deluge system was therefore added.

But SpaceX then took the very untypical step of writing a lengthy response on the Musk-owned X, disputing the CNBC article. According to SpaceX, it worked with the TCEQ throughout the build and test of the water deluge system, and the agency's personnel were on-site to observe the initial tests of it.

Furthermore, the rocket maker noted it was covered by the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit, described here. It said it had explicitly asked both the TCEQ and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) if the operation of the deluge system should stop and was told it could continue.

According to SpaceX, the launchpad is power-washed before the deluge system is activated, and the water from the power-washing collected and hauled away. As for the deluge system itself, the company said the water is potable and mostly vaporized during launch.

However, the water is exposed to the exhaust from Starship's engines, among other contaminants, and some does indeed make it off the pad. According to SpaceX, "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." Ie, whatever water comes off the launch, it's clean and dwarfed by normal rainfall.

SpaceX has also disputed a claim that the wastewater discharged at the site contains high levels of mercury: "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."

However, a look at the company's permit application [PDF] shows that mercury concentration in a sample taken from one outfall location, at 113 µg/L, is quite a bit higher than the 2 µg/L allowed in the EPA regulations. It is not clear where that mercury is actually coming from or if it's a data-entry or measurement error.

Naturally, a human would not usually want to take a sip from whatever is discharged by SpaceX's pad - it's hardly ideal.

According to CNBC, Kenneth Teague, a coastal ecologist based outside of Austin, noted "significant negative impacts" in dumping out pollutants like mercury and high-temperature discharges. These include killing off the prey that make up the diet of seabirds.

He said: "The SpaceX application fails to address this very serious concern."

SpaceX is no stranger to lawsuits over environmental worries and dealing with environmental reviews in its license applications.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had public meetings due this week and next regarding the Draft Tiered Environmental Assessment for SpaceX's plan to increase the launches and landings of its Starship / Super Heavy craft. The first was due today, August 13. However, as of yesterday, all were abruptly postponed.

An FAA spokesperson told The Register, "The FAA is seeking additional information from SpaceX before rescheduling the public meetings."

On August 8, SpaceX said it was awaiting regulatory approval for its next Starship and Superheavy launch. Despite the company's unusual step of issuing a lengthy retort to allegations regarding pollutants from its water deluge system, it appears that liftoff might need to wait a little longer before receiving that approval.

The Register contacted the TCEQ for more information and it declined to comment. ®

Updated to add at 1730 UTC

A SpaceX spokesperson got in touch with us to confirm what several of us already suspected: There was a typo in one of the tables of the initial TCEQ's public version of the permit application, and that the levels of mercury in the non-storm-water deluge discharge were "well below state and federal water quality criteria."

After all, where could all that mercury have come from?

Musk's rocketeers explained on their boss's social media orifice that the initial application was updated to correct the typo, and the TCEQ was making updates public accordingly.