SpaceX hasn't obtained environmental permits for 'flame deflector' system it's testing in Texas

SpaceX ran a "full-pressure test" of a new "flame deflector" system at its Starship Super Heavy launch site in South Texas on Friday. However, CNBC has learned that the company never applied for the environmental permits that would allow it to discharge industrial process wastewater into the area surrounding the launchpad as normally required by the federal Clean Water Act...

SpaceX hasn't disclosed how much water a system test consumes at the site, where that water will run off and what it contains. The Starbase facility, a spaceport with some manufacturing operations onsite, is surrounded by wetlands along the Gulf of Mexico at the southernmost point in Texas. The habitat is crucial for migrating and nesting endangered species and is important to the indigenous population.

After CNBC reported on the company's pushing ahead with no permits on Friday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a post on social media about a "New water deluge system to protect against the immense heat & force of Starship launch." The post included a video showing copious amounts of water flowing from the test site into the surrounding land at the Boca Chica, Texas facility.

In an email to CNBC, a spokesperson for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the state's environmental regulator, confirmed that as of July 28, SpaceX had not applied for what is called a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (TPDES) permit at its Starbase facility. The regulator said the SpaceX site has previously attained three stormwater permit authorizations.

"The determination of whether a discharge permit is needed is the responsibility of the business owner based on how they plan to manage wastewater," the TCEQ wrote in an email to CNBC. The state agency has been in discussions with SpaceX about industrial permitting, the regulator added.

SpaceX hasn't said why it went ahead without a permit and didn't respond to a request for comment...

According to the Environmental Protection Agency's website, criminal enforcement actions can apply to people or companies who "negligently" or "knowingly" discharge pollutants from a "point source" into waters of the United States without a permit. Penalties can include prison time and fines amounting to $2,500 to $50,000 per day.

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Wasn't there something in the news recently which demonstrated that regulators aren't just sitting around making crap up to annoy innovators?

I found an insane article yesterday - I thought someone would have posted it by now...

Tesla created secret team to suppress thousands of driving range complaints

In March, Alexandre Ponsin set out on a family road trip from Colorado to California in his newly purchased Tesla, a used 2021 Model 3. He expected to get something close to the electric sport sedan’s advertised driving range: 353 miles on a fully charged battery.

He soon realized he was sometimes getting less than half that much range, particularly in cold weather – such severe underperformance that he was convinced the car had a serious defect.

“We’re looking at the range, and you literally see the number decrease in front of your eyes,” he said of his dashboard range meter.

Ponsin contacted Tesla and booked a service appointment in California. He later received two text messages, telling him that “remote diagnostics” had determined his battery was fine, and then: “We would like to cancel your visit.”

What Ponsin didn’t know was that Tesla employees had been instructed to thwart any customers complaining about poor driving range from bringing their vehicles in for service. Last summer, the company quietly created a “Diversion Team” in Las Vegas to cancel as many range-related appointments as possible.

The Austin, Texas-based electric carmaker deployed the team because its service centers were inundated with appointments from owners who had expected better performance based on the company’s advertised estimates and the projections displayed by the in-dash range meters of the cars themselves, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Inside the Nevada team’s office, some employees celebrated canceling service appointments by putting their phones on mute and striking a metal xylophone, triggering applause from coworkers who sometimes stood on desks. The team often closed hundreds of cases a week and staffers were tracked on their average number of diverted appointments per day.

Managers told the employees that they were saving Tesla about $1,000 for every canceled appointment, the people said. Another goal was to ease the pressure on service centers, some of which had long waits for appointments.

In most cases, the complaining customers’ cars likely did not need repair, according to the people familiar with the matter. Rather, Tesla created the groundswell of complaints another way – by hyping the range of its futuristic electric vehicles, or EVs, raising consumer expectations beyond what the cars can deliver. Teslas often fail to achieve their advertised range estimates and the projections provided by the cars’ own equipment, according to Reuters interviews with three automotive experts who have tested or studied the company’s vehicles.

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hal
I found an insane article yesterday - I thought someone would have posted it by now...

Five days ago...

[forums.macresource.com]

Maybe since it was a test it was just clean water and no pollutants so no permits needed? The law doesn't say any discharge requires a permit, just discharges with pollutants.

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C(-)ris
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C(-)ris
Maybe since it was a test it was just clean water and no pollutants so no permits needed? The law doesn't say any discharge requires a permit, just discharges with pollutants.

So no rocket engine was fired, just a water deluge. Sounds good.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Maybe it was just Musk telling his company to thumb its nose at little people's rules.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

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Speedy

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C(-)ris
Maybe since it was a test it was just clean water and no pollutants so no permits needed? The law doesn't say any discharge requires a permit, just discharges with pollutants.

So no rocket engine was fired, just a water deluge. Sounds good.

Hundreds of thousands of gallons of water rushing at velocity, washing into the Gulf of Mexico.

It's not "clean water" when it gets there.

And dumping that much freshwater into the tidal flats is not going to be good for the endangered crabs and the algae that the endangered birds feed on.

Yeah, they needed a permit. It's Texas, and the governor has said publicly that he doesn't intend to enforce environmental laws (aka "federal infringement on our sovereignty") on Musk's companies, but the optics aren't good.

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The average thunderstorm dumps millions of gallons of water. Maybe the epa should be suing nature.

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PeterW
The average thunderstorm dumps millions of gallons of water. Maybe the epa should be suing nature.

It doesn't dump it in the space of a few meters. Storm water is spread out for miles.

And it doesn't necessarily have to wash across a toxic wasteland of spent rocket fuel and the remains of the last explosive launch-failure.

But guess what! Storm water runoff is regulated by the EPA!!!
[www.epa.gov]

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