This is pretty bad news for further flights out of Boca Chica and opens up a very wide berth for getting sued out of Texas flight ops.
tacs97 on
Isn’t this why Elmo wants his businesses in Texas? Lower regulations with little to no teeth in court.
Kruki37 on
Can someone explain the issue? It’s just plain water going back into the water system?
dragonlax on
Is anyone shocked by this? Look at the pollution the boring company and Tesla are dumping into the Colorado river in Austin and the legislation he’s trying to get pushed through to allow it. The fines are minuscule compared to the money he and the companies have so it will just continue.
Illustrious-Bee3426 on
Didn’t his family pollute waters and exploit the indigenous peoples during their diamond mining days? So seems on brand for him???
[deleted] on
[removed]
runningray on
Maybe, just maybe TCEQ should do its job for fucking once? I know it gives them notoriety to go after SpaceX. But you know what will impress me more? If TCEQ stops oil companies from dumping 150 million gallons of toxic, highly saline wastewater on Texas for the last 10 years!
Planatus666 on
It’s well worth reading SpaceX’s response to this, as follows:
Basically, they state that it’s factually inaccurate. But read the whole tweet, it gives all of the details which effectively gives CNBC’s article a good kicking.
joecrocker007 on
hmm, isn’t lax regulation the reason they’re moving to Texes?
mp3file on
Talk about missing the forest for the trees… author doesn’t provide a single piece of evidence to back their claim. You know what SpaceX *doesn’t* pollute the water with though? **The entire fucking rocket booster itself**.
ergzay on
This article is misinformation. Here’s SpaceX’s correction pointing out the factually incorrect claims being made:
> **CNBC’s story on Starship’s launch operations in South Texas is factually inaccurate.**
>
> Starship’s water-cooled flame deflector system is critical equipment for SpaceX’s launch operations. It ensures flight safety and protects the launch site and surrounding area.
>
> Also known as the deluge system, it applies clean, potable (drinking) water to the engine exhaust during static fire tests and launches to absorb the heat and vibration from the rocket engines firing. Similar equipment has long been used at launch sites across the United States – such as Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Stations in Florida, and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California – and across the globe.
>
> SpaceX worked with the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) throughout the build and test of the water deluge system at Starbase to identify a permit approach. TCEQ personnel were onsite at Starbase to observe the initial tests of the system in July 2023, and TCEQ’s website shows that SpaceX is covered by the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit.
>
> When the EPA issued their Administrative Order in March 2024, it was done without an understanding of basic facts of the deluge system’s operation or acknowledgement that we were operating under the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit.
>
> 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.
>
> **Throughout our ongoing coordination with both TCEQ and the EPA, we have explicitly asked if operation of the deluge system needed to stop and we were informed that operations could continue.**
>
> TCEQ and the EPA have allowed continued operations because the deluge system has always complied with common conditions set by an Individual Permit, and causes no harm to the environment. Specifically:
>
> – We only use potable (drinking) water in the system’s operation. At no time during the operation of the deluge system is the potable water used in an industrial process, nor is the water exposed to industrial processes before or during operation of the system.
>
> – The launch pad area is power-washed prior to activating the deluge system, with the power-washed water collected and hauled off.
>
> – The vast majority of the water used in each operation is vaporized by the rocket’s engines.
>
> – 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.
>
> – Retention ponds capture excess water and are specially lined to prevent any mixing with local groundwater. Any water captured in these ponds, including water from rainfall events, is pumped out and hauled off.
>
> – Finally, some water does leave the area of the pad, mostly from water released prior to ignition and after engine shutdown or launch. To give you an idea of how much: 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.
>
> With Starship, we’re revolutionizing humanity’s ability to access space with a fully reusable rocket that plays an integral role in multiple national priorities, including returning humans to the surface of the Moon. SpaceX and its thousands of employees work tirelessly to ensure the United States remains the world’s leader in space, and we remain committed to working with our local and federal partners to be good stewards of the environment.
Notably this story is written by Lora Kolodny, an author infamous for her hatred of all Elon Musk companies. She only writes about Elon Musk related companies. She needs to continue to write misleading clickbait about Elon Musk companies to keep up her readership. She is not a respected journalist.
GnashvilleTea on
Conservatives, probably : The fix to the situation is obvious. We need less regulation. We don’t need to be knowing what companies are doing. We need to let them express their liberty. Don’t be worrying about what is or isn’t in your water. Anything more than just plain water is a win in my book. Everybody’s got their hand out for clean pure water. Sure that’s all well and good but nobody wants any forever chemicals or heavy metals or leftover pesticides these days. Snowflakes I say.
Decronym on
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[ablative](/r/Space/comments/1eqmud6/stub/lhsvkwe “Last usage”)|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)|
|[methalox](/r/Space/comments/1eqmud6/stub/lhsvkwe “Last usage”)|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
The mentioned mercury measurement is very strange, since there is no obvious source of mercury and also SpaceX directly denied there was ever such a measurement.
I guess we’ll have to see how this plays out but I’d personally put money on this being a simple case of both spacex and regulators not spending much time formalizing things after they basically agreed that both the data and logic indicate there is no issue here, and then somebody with an axe to grind decided to make it everybody’s problem. But, this does not explain the mercury measurement (if there is one).
CumuloNimbus9 on
How do you launch a massive rocket into space without pollution?
15 Comments
This is pretty bad news for further flights out of Boca Chica and opens up a very wide berth for getting sued out of Texas flight ops.
Isn’t this why Elmo wants his businesses in Texas? Lower regulations with little to no teeth in court.
Can someone explain the issue? It’s just plain water going back into the water system?
Is anyone shocked by this? Look at the pollution the boring company and Tesla are dumping into the Colorado river in Austin and the legislation he’s trying to get pushed through to allow it. The fines are minuscule compared to the money he and the companies have so it will just continue.
Didn’t his family pollute waters and exploit the indigenous peoples during their diamond mining days? So seems on brand for him???
[removed]
Maybe, just maybe TCEQ should do its job for fucking once? I know it gives them notoriety to go after SpaceX. But you know what will impress me more? If TCEQ stops oil companies from dumping 150 million gallons of toxic, highly saline wastewater on Texas for the last 10 years!
It’s well worth reading SpaceX’s response to this, as follows:
https://x.com/spacex/status/1823080774012481862
Basically, they state that it’s factually inaccurate. But read the whole tweet, it gives all of the details which effectively gives CNBC’s article a good kicking.
hmm, isn’t lax regulation the reason they’re moving to Texes?
Talk about missing the forest for the trees… author doesn’t provide a single piece of evidence to back their claim. You know what SpaceX *doesn’t* pollute the water with though? **The entire fucking rocket booster itself**.
This article is misinformation. Here’s SpaceX’s correction pointing out the factually incorrect claims being made:
> **CNBC’s story on Starship’s launch operations in South Texas is factually inaccurate.**
>
> Starship’s water-cooled flame deflector system is critical equipment for SpaceX’s launch operations. It ensures flight safety and protects the launch site and surrounding area.
>
> Also known as the deluge system, it applies clean, potable (drinking) water to the engine exhaust during static fire tests and launches to absorb the heat and vibration from the rocket engines firing. Similar equipment has long been used at launch sites across the United States – such as Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Stations in Florida, and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California – and across the globe.
>
> SpaceX worked with the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) throughout the build and test of the water deluge system at Starbase to identify a permit approach. TCEQ personnel were onsite at Starbase to observe the initial tests of the system in July 2023, and TCEQ’s website shows that SpaceX is covered by the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit.
>
> When the EPA issued their Administrative Order in March 2024, it was done without an understanding of basic facts of the deluge system’s operation or acknowledgement that we were operating under the Texas Multi-Sector General Permit.
>
> 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.
>
> **Throughout our ongoing coordination with both TCEQ and the EPA, we have explicitly asked if operation of the deluge system needed to stop and we were informed that operations could continue.**
>
> TCEQ and the EPA have allowed continued operations because the deluge system has always complied with common conditions set by an Individual Permit, and causes no harm to the environment. Specifically:
>
> – We only use potable (drinking) water in the system’s operation. At no time during the operation of the deluge system is the potable water used in an industrial process, nor is the water exposed to industrial processes before or during operation of the system.
>
> – The launch pad area is power-washed prior to activating the deluge system, with the power-washed water collected and hauled off.
>
> – The vast majority of the water used in each operation is vaporized by the rocket’s engines.
>
> – 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.
>
> – Retention ponds capture excess water and are specially lined to prevent any mixing with local groundwater. Any water captured in these ponds, including water from rainfall events, is pumped out and hauled off.
>
> – Finally, some water does leave the area of the pad, mostly from water released prior to ignition and after engine shutdown or launch. To give you an idea of how much: 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.
>
> With Starship, we’re revolutionizing humanity’s ability to access space with a fully reusable rocket that plays an integral role in multiple national priorities, including returning humans to the surface of the Moon. SpaceX and its thousands of employees work tirelessly to ensure the United States remains the world’s leader in space, and we remain committed to working with our local and federal partners to be good stewards of the environment.
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1823080774012481862
Notably this story is written by Lora Kolodny, an author infamous for her hatred of all Elon Musk companies. She only writes about Elon Musk related companies. She needs to continue to write misleading clickbait about Elon Musk companies to keep up her readership. She is not a respected journalist.
Conservatives, probably : The fix to the situation is obvious. We need less regulation. We don’t need to be knowing what companies are doing. We need to let them express their liberty. Don’t be worrying about what is or isn’t in your water. Anything more than just plain water is a win in my book. Everybody’s got their hand out for clean pure water. Sure that’s all well and good but nobody wants any forever chemicals or heavy metals or leftover pesticides these days. Snowflakes I say.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[FAA](/r/Space/comments/1eqmud6/stub/lhsursw “Last usage”)|Federal Aviation Administration|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[ablative](/r/Space/comments/1eqmud6/stub/lhsvkwe “Last usage”)|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)|
|[methalox](/r/Space/comments/1eqmud6/stub/lhsvkwe “Last usage”)|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
—————-
^(3 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1eo0nbi)^( has 16 acronyms.)
^([Thread #10435 for this sub, first seen 12th Aug 2024, 20:30])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/Space) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
The mentioned mercury measurement is very strange, since there is no obvious source of mercury and also SpaceX directly denied there was ever such a measurement.
I guess we’ll have to see how this plays out but I’d personally put money on this being a simple case of both spacex and regulators not spending much time formalizing things after they basically agreed that both the data and logic indicate there is no issue here, and then somebody with an axe to grind decided to make it everybody’s problem. But, this does not explain the mercury measurement (if there is one).
How do you launch a massive rocket into space without pollution?