SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, has violated environmental regulations by repeatedly releasing pollutants into waterways in or near Texas, a state agency said in a notice of violation involving the corporate's water flooding system at its Starbase launch facility.
The notice from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last week got here five months after the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 6 office, which covers Texas and surrounding states, also informed SpaceX that the corporate had violated the Clean Water Act by engaging in the identical kind of activity.
The communications and related investigative documents, which CNBC has obtained, haven’t previously been reported.
TCEQ said its agency's office within the southern Texas city of Harlingen, near the Boca Chica Starbase, received a criticism on August 6, 2023, alleging that SpaceX “discharged flood water without TCEQ authorization.”
“In total, 14 complaints were received in the Harlingen region about alleged environmental impacts from the plant’s flood system,” the regulator’s document states.
Aerospace corporations, including SpaceX, generally must comply with state and federal laws to acquire approval for Federal Aviation Administration for future launches. SpaceX applied for approval to conduct as much as 25 launches and landings of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket per 12 months at its Boca Chica facility. Violations could delay those approvals and end in civil fines for SpaceX, further investigations and criminal charges.
SpaceX didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Reconstruction in a rush
On July 25, 2024, a TCEQ environmental investigator “conducted an internal review of compliance records” to find out SpaceX's compliance with wastewater regulations. The investigation found that SpaceX had discharged industrial wastewater with out a permit 4 times between March and July of this 12 months.
Water flooding systems with flame deflectors disperse heat, sound and energy generated during orbital test flights and rocket launches, but SpaceX didn’t install this technique at its Boca Chica launch site before it began test flights of the biggest rocket ever built, Starship.
SpaceX is developing Starship to move people and equipment to the moon and, if Musk eventually realizes his grand vision, to colonize Mars. During Starship's first test flight in April 2023, the rocket's energy caused SpaceX's concrete launch pad to blow up, and the spacecraft also exploded in midair.
Chunks of concrete were hurled right into a nesting and migration site necessary for some nearby threatened species, and a 3.5-acre fire raged in Boca Chica State Park south of the launch pad. In response, environmental groups filed suit against SpaceX and the FAA, which authorized the launches.
With Musk pushing for an additional orbital test flight inside a month or two, SpaceX rushed to rebuild the launch pad and install a brand new water deluge system to stop one other explosion. Regulators said the corporate bypassed a permitting process that will have required it to satisfy pollutant emissions limits and specify how it might treat its wastewater.
SpaceX conducted its first full-pressure test of the water flooding system in July 2023. About a month later, on August 25, 2023, the EPA opened an investigation and requested information from the corporate about its wastewater discharges and more.
According to documents obtained by CNBC, the agency sent SpaceX a proper notice of the violation on March 13.
Despite receiving the EPA's notice a day earlier, SpaceX conducted its third test flight of Starship on March 14, again using its unapproved high-pressure cleansing system on the launch site.
The company reached latest milestones with the test flight and Musk seemed triumphant. NASA chief Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on “a successful test flight!” regardless that the rocket was lost during landing approach over the Indian Ocean.
Environmental engineer Eric Roesch, whose ESG Hound Blog focuses on business and sustainability and predicted before Starship's first test flight that SpaceX would wish a water flooding system on the launch pad. He was also certainly one of the primary to criticize SpaceX for using such a system without proper approvals.
After authorities informed SpaceX that environmental regulations had been violated, continuing launch operations at Starbase exposed the corporate to greater legal risk, Roesch said in an interview.
“Further discharges of wastewater could result in further investigations and criminal charges against the company or against those involved in authorizing the discharges,” he said.
Years of violations
Roesch also noted that SpaceX had 30 days to use for a permit after receiving a notice of violation from the EPA, but the corporate didn’t submit its application until July 1, about 110 days later, based on a replica of the applying available within the TCEQ public archives.
“They have been violating wastewater regulations for years and apparently continue to do so with the blessing of the FAA,” Roesch said.
Kenneth Teague, a coastal ecologist from near Austin, evaluated the 483-page SpaceX permit applicationTeague, who has greater than 30 years of experience in water quality and coastal planning, told CNBC that the proposal was stuffed with gaps and lacked basic details about discharge volumes, wastewater temperatures and discharge locations.
Teague said he was particularly concerned concerning the mercury concentration within the wastewater from the SpaceX water flooding system. The levels reported within the document represented “very large exceedances of the mercury water quality criteria,” Teague said.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Mercury is “one of the most dangerous pollutants threatening our nation’s waters because it is a powerful neurotoxin to fish, wildlife and humans.”
Teague said high-temperature discharges and high concentrations of pollutants similar to mercury could have “significant negative impacts,” similar to killing the “tiny creatures” that make up the seabirds' food regimen.
“SpaceX’s application does not address this very serious problem,” he said.
CNBC reached out to the FAA on Friday. The agency didn’t provide comment for this story, but announced Monday that it was postponing public meetings scheduled for this week. The meetings were for an environmental impact assessment for “SpaceX's plan to increase the number of launches and landings of its Starship/Super Heavy vehicles at the Boca Chica launch site in Cameron County, Texas.”
The FAA didn’t give a reason for the postponement and said latest dates can be announced at a later date.
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