Fringe activists in Texas sue SpaceX to prevent further launches of Starship/Superheavy
In an obvious attempt to block SpaceX’s effort to do the fifth Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch this coming weekend, a fringe activist group dubbed Save RGV has now sued the company, accusing it of using industrial wastewater in the launchpad’s deluge system that acts to minimize damage to the pad.
The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Brownsville Division, under the Clean Water Act (CWA), seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, the imposition of civil penalties and “other appropriate relief” to bring a halt to SpaceX’s “recurring, unpermitted discharges of untreated industrial wastewater from the deluge system at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site into waters of the United States,” according to the suit.
According to SpaceX, water in the deluge system is potable drinking water. Moreover, in previous launches the company obtained all the proper licenses for its use, only to have the EPA subsequently step in and claim SpaceX had “violated the Clean Water Act in deploying the deluge system. The EPA did not assess a fine, but did order SpaceX to comply with federal regulations.” That action has forced the FAA to delay issuing any further launch licenses, even as of today.
I call Save RGV a fringe group because it has almost no support from within the Rio Grande Valley surrounding Boca Chica and Brownsville. That community is overwhelming in support of SpaceX’s efforts, and wants it to grow and expand, because of all the jobs and money it is bringing to the region.
This suit is clearly an attempt to forestall any launch license approval the FAA might want to issue for SpaceX’s desire to launch this weekend, on October 13, 2024. SpaceX is ready to go that day, and is now merely waiting for the FAA to “go!”.
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In an obvious attempt to block SpaceX’s effort to do the fifth Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch this coming weekend, a fringe activist group dubbed Save RGV has now sued the company, accusing it of using industrial wastewater in the launchpad’s deluge system that acts to minimize damage to the pad.
The suit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Brownsville Division, under the Clean Water Act (CWA), seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, the imposition of civil penalties and “other appropriate relief” to bring a halt to SpaceX’s “recurring, unpermitted discharges of untreated industrial wastewater from the deluge system at the SpaceX Boca Chica Launch Site into waters of the United States,” according to the suit.
According to SpaceX, water in the deluge system is potable drinking water. Moreover, in previous launches the company obtained all the proper licenses for its use, only to have the EPA subsequently step in and claim SpaceX had “violated the Clean Water Act in deploying the deluge system. The EPA did not assess a fine, but did order SpaceX to comply with federal regulations.” That action has forced the FAA to delay issuing any further launch licenses, even as of today.
I call Save RGV a fringe group because it has almost no support from within the Rio Grande Valley surrounding Boca Chica and Brownsville. That community is overwhelming in support of SpaceX’s efforts, and wants it to grow and expand, because of all the jobs and money it is bringing to the region.
This suit is clearly an attempt to forestall any launch license approval the FAA might want to issue for SpaceX’s desire to launch this weekend, on October 13, 2024. SpaceX is ready to go that day, and is now merely waiting for the FAA to “go!”.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The human body is made up of about 60% water. Therefore, Save RGV is made up of 60% Starship deluge.
It’s worth noting that Save RGV doesn’t just have a rage-hate for Elon Musk. They’re also in the litigation to stop NextDecade’s liquid natural gas project in Brownsville, along with the Sierra Club and usual suspects. (The suspects won a round at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in August, but the litigation continues: https://www.valleycentral.com/news/cruz-asks-feds-to-appeal-ruling-against-lng-project/ )
In short, they’re BANANA activists. None of ’em or their families need the jobs that SpaceX or Next decade are trying to bring the Brownsville area, and they have contempt for those that do.
https://x.com/btxrgv/status/1844485846369480906?s=46
Brownsville sends out notice.
Gary: Brownsville’s action here only underlines how much of a fringe Save RGV is. The city is all-in on SpaceX, and wants this launch to happen.
I think they mean that when the potable drinking water get mixed with the rocket exhaust at launch it turns into industrial waste water.
A couple of things here:
The EPA did fine SpaceX. Read it and correct: https://www.epa.gov/tx/proposed-administrative-penalty-order-against-space-explorations-technologies-corp-spacex-clean
SpaceX said one thing publicly and another when it applied for a discharge permit in July. To wit:
In response to NPR’s request for comment for this story, SpaceX referred to a lengthy post it put up Sept. 10. In the post, the company categorically denied that the water system it employs for launches was in any way hazardous.
“It uses literal drinking water,” the post read in part. “The subsequent fines levied on SpaceX by TCEQ and the EPA are entirely tied to disagreements over paperwork. We chose to settle so that we can focus our energy on completing the missions and commitments that we have made to the U.S. government, commercial customers, and ourselves.”
Experts contacted by NPR disagree with the company’s statement. The water is being used to cool the launch pad as Starship’s engines fire. While drinking water may be used in the system, after it comes into contact with the rocket exhaust, it contains high levels of dissolved solids and potentially toxic chemicals like zinc and hexavalent chromium, according to the license application submitted by SpaceX to Texas regulators.
“I would not feel comfortable drinking it as drinking water,” says Courtney Gardner, an assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. “And I would not recommend that anybody else would drink it either.”
Story here: https://www.npr.org/2024/10/10/nx-s1-5145776/spacex-texas-wetlands
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexavalent_chromium
Look for the line stating Hexavalent Chromium is found in drinking water.
It is almost impossible to remove it. And its only dangerous if inhaled for years.
As for zinc.
Give me a break its used everyplace for everything. Included as a coating to stop rust in many large diameter drinking water pipes. Metal roof coatings and in paints.
The contaminates they are citing are coming in with the drinking water. Would it be better to use local sea water or captured fresh water?
pzatchok:
So you looked up one chemical discussed in the article on Wikipedia and dismissed another one without knowing anything about the levels involved or what else is in the discharged water that the article didn’t mention? There are federal standards for these things. Have you looked into what they are?
SpaceX was also deceptive in claiming they were simply discharging drinking water.
Give us all a break here.
D. Messier: You like to slander Elon Musk and SpaceX, but it is clear you did not read the FAA reevaluation. From its clean water section:
The report than describes how the government agency then pulled a switch on SpaceX, and told it the water really was covered by different regulations both on the state level and by the EPA, requiring different permits. SpaceX immediately submitted new permit applications (July 1) under these different regulations. Texas approved this on August 13th. The EPA approved it on September 5th, sending a letter to SpaceX on September 12th that stated that SpaceX “met the requirements in the above-referenced Administrative Order, and it is hereby closed.”
Note too that the evaluation also includes these statements of fact that uphold SpaceX’s position:
In other words, SpaceX was always in compliance, as it claimed. The problem was the sudden out-of -the-blue demands of the EPA and the Texas bureaucracy that caused the delay, for no reason. Note too that even after these new permits were approved, the FAA took more than a month to issue the launch license, also for no reason except it needed time to type up this paperwork.
All very shameful on the government’s part, but very much par for the course. And it does appear that anti-Musk/Trump political bias lies behind a lot of these actions.
Too bad your irrational hate of Musk and Trump combined with what has seemed over time your irrational love of government regulation makes it impossible for you to recognize this.
It’s good to know that SpaceX’s discharges are within requirements. And you’re right I should have read more about this before commenting.
Still, with the billions being spent on this program, it behooves everyone (SpaceX’s legal team, FAA, TCEQ, EPA) to ensure that there be proper permitting for this operation. Yet there were four launches without an EPA signoff relating to discharges and the Clean Water Act. That sets a very bad precedent.
SpaceX and Musk fanboyism on this site tends to see every government action as somehow being hostile and politically motivated. This is irrational, but I see no sign of it ever stopping.
Hello Doug,
I think it is possible to think that SpaceX’s compliance department was not as diligent as it could have been at times on its regulatory compliance, and also to think that a lot of what has happened might have been a difficult-to-avoid collision with a government regulatory constellation that really was not designed to address the kind of thing SpaceX is attempting to undertake in Boca Chica. Its deluge system got caught up between state and federal environmental regulatory agencies with quite different requirements, and *neither* was written with rocket launch pad deluge systems in mind.
Yes, it’s true that, as even Eric Berger has observed, Elon does not play well with regulators. But there’s also just not much precedent for what SpaceX is trying to do, or the speed with which it’s doing it. And this is especially true of the FAA, which has clearly been struggling to cope with the new commercial space launch industry that has emerged, even if you discount every single concern that folks like Bob and Rand have mooted about politicization of its leadership. The complaints have been coming from everyone in the last few House hearings on this question over the summer, and not just from SpaceX!
Richard M:
I think there’s a lot of truth in what you say. There were legitimate concerns about the catching of the Super Heavy booster that FAA had to review. The delays were not exclusively about the water discharge permit.
D. Messier,
You wrote: “SpaceX and Musk fanboyism on this site tends to see every government action as somehow being hostile and politically motivated. This is irrational, but I see no sign of it ever stopping.”
Actually, Doug, we have seen government overreach in far more than just SpaceX or space in general. It has been defining our everyday lives even before Obamacare made healthcare unaffordable for anyone without an employer rich enough to cover that expense and before Obamacare caused our life expectancies to fall rather than continue its century-long continuous rise.
For the past four decades we have realized, as the head of government told us, government is not the solution, but it is the problem. This problem has wormed its way into all aspects of our lives.
Only people who don’t want to take responsibility for their own lives think such a worm is a good thing.
Edward:
You hate government over reach?
Uh huh. You don’t say.
That comes across in every post and every discussion on this site. Every. Single. One.
You see government as the problem. OK.
Others of us appreciate its role in maintaining the infrastructure of an advanced industrialized nation. We also see it as a counter weight to restrain corporations and limit the damage they do.
It doesn’t always do these things especially well. But it is necessary. And not all of its decisions are irrational and wrong.
D. Messier,
You wrote: “Others of us appreciate its role in maintaining the infrastructure of an advanced industrialized nation..”
So, you are unable to distinguish between the necessary regulation and oversight that I discussed with Robert just a couple of weeks ago (every single one, huh?) and overreach?
Yeah. That makes sense. Consistent with your comment history.
Why is the water deluge that comes in contact with rocket exhaust treated differently by the EPA than the water deluge used in Cape Canaveral?
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/water-deluge-test-a-success-at-launch-pad-39b/
D. Messier,
You wrote: “Edward: You hate government over reach? Uh huh. You don’t say.”
It looks like I’m not the only one who is concerned about governmental overreach. Influential Europeans are also concerned.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/good-news-the-european-unions-space-law-is-delayed/
Why would people be concerned? Because overregulation hampers progress. Ten European nations already have laws covering commercial use of space, so why should the nations that have no stake in space hinder those countries that do?
The right amount of regulation keeps things running smoothly, such as traffic laws and signage that prevent auto accidents, yet allows a good flow of traffic (auto or commercial, as in: all the traffic will bear). Too much traffic regulation, such as too many or poorly programmed stoplights, obstructs traffic, not helps it. But, if you feel that too many metaphorical* stoplights have a role in maintaining the infrastructure, that is your opinion. You are wrong, but entitled to your own opinion.
______________
* As with Will Rogers, I never met a phor I didn’t like.**
** https://quotesfromthepast.com/i-never-met-a-man-i-didnt-like/