Local Texas authorities fine SpaceX for dumping potable water in Boca Chica
In what is simply another case of apparent harassment fueled by a tiny minority of anti-Musk activists, local Texas authorities have fined SpaceX a whopping $3,750 for dumping potable water at Boca Chica during the last test launch of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.
Late last month, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shared that SpaceX failed to get authorization to discharge industrial wastewater into or adjacent to surrounding wetlands, resulting in a $3,750 penalty. The wastewater SpaceX is charged with releasing comes from a water deluge system for its massive Starship rocket. The deluge system is used to absorb heat and vibration from the rocket engines firing.
This article is typical of most of our leftist mainstream press. It pushes the false claims of those activists — such as their insistence they represent everyone in the south Rio Grande Valley and that the water was “industrial wastewater.” First, they represent almost no one in south Texas, as almost everyone there is very happy with SpaceX and the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs it is bringing to the area. For example, these groups recently held an event on the beaches near SpaceX facilities “to fight for its preservation, which they view as being in jeopardy since the arrival of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”
Only about a dozen people showed up.
Second, the water is not “industrial wastewater.” As Elon Musk noted in a tweet, “Just to be clear, this silly fine was for spilling potable drinking water! Literally, you could drink it.”
Nonetheless, this manufactured environmental issue has clearly been used to stall SpaceX’s efforts. The company had said it was ready to do the next test launch of Starship/Superheavy on August 8, 2024. It is now a month later, and the FAA has still not issued the launch license. It is possible that part of the reason for the delay is because SpaceX has decided it will attempt to bring Superheavy back to the launch tower at Boca Chica, where the tower’s chopstick arms will try to capture it on landing. If so, the FAA might be demanding more assurances of safety than SpaceX can reasonably provide.
The delay however is also almost certainly caused by this fake environmental water issue. The FAA apparently has been forced to deal with it, and that action has stalled all of its new regulatory harassment of SpaceX, including the process to approve a new environmental assessment of Boca Chica that would allow the company to launch as many as 22 times per year.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
In what is simply another case of apparent harassment fueled by a tiny minority of anti-Musk activists, local Texas authorities have fined SpaceX a whopping $3,750 for dumping potable water at Boca Chica during the last test launch of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.
Late last month, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shared that SpaceX failed to get authorization to discharge industrial wastewater into or adjacent to surrounding wetlands, resulting in a $3,750 penalty. The wastewater SpaceX is charged with releasing comes from a water deluge system for its massive Starship rocket. The deluge system is used to absorb heat and vibration from the rocket engines firing.
This article is typical of most of our leftist mainstream press. It pushes the false claims of those activists — such as their insistence they represent everyone in the south Rio Grande Valley and that the water was “industrial wastewater.” First, they represent almost no one in south Texas, as almost everyone there is very happy with SpaceX and the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs it is bringing to the area. For example, these groups recently held an event on the beaches near SpaceX facilities “to fight for its preservation, which they view as being in jeopardy since the arrival of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”
Only about a dozen people showed up.
Second, the water is not “industrial wastewater.” As Elon Musk noted in a tweet, “Just to be clear, this silly fine was for spilling potable drinking water! Literally, you could drink it.”
Nonetheless, this manufactured environmental issue has clearly been used to stall SpaceX’s efforts. The company had said it was ready to do the next test launch of Starship/Superheavy on August 8, 2024. It is now a month later, and the FAA has still not issued the launch license. It is possible that part of the reason for the delay is because SpaceX has decided it will attempt to bring Superheavy back to the launch tower at Boca Chica, where the tower’s chopstick arms will try to capture it on landing. If so, the FAA might be demanding more assurances of safety than SpaceX can reasonably provide.
The delay however is also almost certainly caused by this fake environmental water issue. The FAA apparently has been forced to deal with it, and that action has stalled all of its new regulatory harassment of SpaceX, including the process to approve a new environmental assessment of Boca Chica that would allow the company to launch as many as 22 times per year.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
The TCEQ is a worthless and annoying bureaucracy. I know, because the rat bastards are about to renew a license for an outfit that’s operation will render our well-water toxic. Meanwhile, they are levying fines against SpaceX for the heinous crime of allowing potable drinking water, pumped from the Brownsville Municipal Water System and trucked down Hwy 4, to flow onto a barren salt flat devoid of life. Absolute insanity…
Do they fine the fire department for letting water they use to put out fires fall on the ground?
And that water is just full of chemicals to make it drinkable and useful for humans. Chemicals that could poison well water.
allowing potable drinking water, pumped from the Brownsville Municipal Water System and trucked down Hwy 4, to flow onto a barren salt flat devoid of life
I disagree.
If I live on a salt flat and you have a garden next door, and I squirt my salty barren dirt with a firehose (powered by a Raptor engine), that salty water is getting into your garden. You will have a case against me. Even though all I used was the same water you use.
The general public who walks through the swamp area carry in more contaminates that Space X blasts in with simple water.
Plus nature itself washes in more garbage that Space X does.
If they are saying that pure water alone is a contaminate to the area they need to think that just one or two tidal actions wash out all the fresh water from a single launch.
SpaceX is being reminded their paperwork is being scrutinized, and they need authorization to run the deluge system.
(forget the “potable water” Narrative, it’s linguistic distraction and framing.)
Brazil (1985)
“Central Services Arrives to Repair the A/C”
https://youtu.be/rtX79lg2354
1:30
It does rain now and again. That rainwater will contain salt picked up from the Gulf of Mexico.
Good point
Rainfall isn’t considered a point-source’ by the EPA.
https://www.epa.gov/cwa-404/clean-water-act-section-502-general-definitions
Again, this isn’t about the composition of the substance, it’s about compliance.
As Mr. Z., often notes:
“Nice rocket-company you have here, it would be a shame if anything happened to it.”
It’s not that “they” are stupid, and if you only explained it to them in a rational way they would understand.
We get to call them stupid, and they get to run the world. Who in this scenario, is winning?
Might as well make rainfall illegal.
Rain water is fresh water. That’s where municipal water comes from. Basically, SpaceX is dumping rainwater that may have some treatments to it, in order to make it potable.
If rainwater is polluted, then it is illegal. But you cannot bankrupt nature. Or put nature in jail.
Here’s some calculations for you. For every inch of rain, there is about half a gallon of water. If you run the numbers, then every 40 acres gets 1 million gallons of rainfall per inch of rain fallen. Since Starbase is basically on the coast, it gets a lot of rain. One inch rains are probably commonplace.
So for doing what mother nature does on a regular basis, SpaceX gets a fine. Ridiculous.
Rule of law my ashcan. This is about politics.
Houston and the area around is a swamp.
They actually fly crop dusters over the city to kill mosquitoes. They announce the day and ask that all animals be brought it,
That’s right, they directly poison the whole of the city.
North By Northwest (1959)
“Where There Ain’t No Crops”
https://youtu.be/EK1o6ixoe_I?t=62
Monty Python
-the relevant clip–
https://youtu.be/cNZKUozrBl4?t=92