SpaceX's Starship launches its fourth flight test from the company's Boca Chica launch pad near Brownsville, Texas, in this June 6, 2024 photo showing how it is designed to send astronauts to the moon and beyond.
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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 company's water flooding system at its Starbase launch facility.
The notice from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last week came five months after the Environmental Protection Agency's Region 6 office, which covers Texas and surrounding states, also informed SpaceX that the company had violated the Clean Water Act by engaging in the same type of activity.
The communications and related investigative documents, which CNBC has obtained, have not previously been reported.
TCEQ said its agency's office in the southern Texas city of Harlingen, near the Boca Chica Starbase, received a complaint 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 companies, including SpaceX, generally must comply with state and federal laws to receive Federal Aviation Administration approval for future launches. SpaceX applied for approval to conduct up to 25 launches and landings of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket per year at its Boca Chica facility. Violations could delay those approvals and result in civil fines for SpaceX, further investigations and criminal charges.
In a detailed post on X after this story was published, SpaceX said regulators had told the company it could continue with launch operations despite the violation notices.
“During our ongoing consultation with TCEQ and EPA, we specifically asked if flood system operations needed to be suspended and were told operations could continue,” SpaceX wrote on X.
Neither regulator answered CNBC's questions about SpaceX's statement.
Reconstruction in a hurry
On July 25, 2024, a TCEQ environmental investigator “conducted an internal review of compliance records” to determine SpaceX's compliance with wastewater regulations. The investigation found that SpaceX had discharged industrial wastewater without a permit four times between March and July of this year.
Water flooding systems with flame deflectors disperse heat, sound and energy generated during orbital test flights and rocket launches, but SpaceX did not install this system at its Boca Chica launch site before it began test flights of the largest rocket ever built, Starship.
SpaceX is developing Starship to transport 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 explode, and the spacecraft also exploded in midair.
Chunks of concrete were hurled into a nesting and migration site important 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 another orbital test flight within a month or two, SpaceX rushed to rebuild the launch pad and install a new water deluge system to prevent another explosion. Regulators said the company bypassed a permitting process that would have required it to meet pollutant emissions limits and specify how it would 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 company about its wastewater discharges and more.
According to documents obtained by CNBC, the agency sent SpaceX a formal 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 cleaning system at the launch site.
The company reached new milestones with the test flight and Musk seemed triumphant. NASA chief Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on “a successful test flight!” even though the rocket was lost during landing approach over the Indian Ocean.
Environmental engineer Eric Roesch, whose blog ESG Hound focuses on economics and sustainability, predicted before Starship's first test flight that SpaceX would need a water flooding system on the launch pad. He was also one of the first to criticize SpaceX for using such a system without proper permits.
After authorities informed SpaceX that environmental regulations had been violated, continuing launch operations at Starbase exposed the company 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.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on Wednesday that SpaceX does not yet have clearance for another test flight of its Starship Super Heavy launch vehicle.
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Years of violations
Roesch also noted that SpaceX had 30 days to apply for a permit after receiving a notice of violation from the EPA, but the company did not submit its application until July 1, about 110 days later, according to a copy of the application available in 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.
In its statement Monday, SpaceX wrote that the flooding system “causes no harm to the environment.” The company said other permits obtained by SpaceX count as authorization for its use.
Kenneth Teague, a coastal ecologist based near Austin, reviewed SpaceX's 483-page permit application. Teague, who has more than 30 years of experience in water quality and coastal planning, told CNBC the application is riddled with gaps and lacks basic information about water volumes, wastewater temperatures and discharge locations.
Teague said he was particularly concerned about the mercury concentration in the wastewater from the SpaceX water flooding system. The levels reported in 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 potent neurotoxin to fish, wildlife and humans.”
Teague said high-temperature discharges and high concentrations of pollutants such as mercury could have “significant negative impacts,” such as killing the “tiny creatures” that make up the seabirds' diet.
“SpaceX’s application does not address this very serious problem,” he said.
SpaceX said in its response to X that it found “no detectable amounts of mercury” in its samples. But SpaceX wrote in its July permit application: under the heading Specific Test Requirements – Table 2 for Outfall: 001 — that mercury concentrations at one spill were 113 micrograms per liter. The state's water quality criteria require levels of no more than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute water toxicity and much lower levels for human health.
CNBC reached out to the FAA on Friday. The agency did not 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 did not give a reason for the postponement and said new dates would be announced at a later date.
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