SpaceX's Starship spacecraft, designed to send astronauts to the moon and beyond, launches on its fourth test flight from the company's Boca Chica launch pad near Brownsville, Texas, U.S., in this handout image obtained on June 6, 2024.
SpaceX | via Reuters
Elon Musk's SpaceX violated environmental rules by repeatedly releasing pollutants into or near bodies of water in Texas, a government agency said in a violation notice focusing on the company's water deluge system at its Starbase launch facility.
The notice from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) last week came five months after the EPA's Region 6 office, which covers Texas and surrounding states, also notified SpaceX that it had violated the Clean Water Act with the same type of activity.
The related investigative notices and records, obtained by CNBC, have not been previously reported.
The Texas Environmental Quality Commission said its agency's office in the South Texas city of Harlingen, near Starbase in Boca Chica, received a complaint on Aug. 6, 2023, alleging that SpaceX “was discharging stormwater without a permit from the Texas Environmental Quality Commission.”
“In total, the Harlingen District received 14 complaints alleging environmental impacts from the facility’s flooding system,” the regulatory agency said in the document.
Aerospace companies, including SpaceX, generally need to comply with state and federal laws to obtain FAA approval for future launches. SpaceX had been seeking permission to conduct up to 25 launches and landings per year of its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket at its facility in Boca Chica. Violation notices could delay those approvals and result in civil financial penalties for SpaceX, further investigations and criminal charges.
In a lengthy post on X following the publication of this story, SpaceX said regulators had told the company it could continue with launches despite the infringement notices.
“During our ongoing coordination with both the Texas Environmental Quality Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, we explicitly asked whether it was necessary to shut down the deluge system and were informed that operations could continue,” SpaceX wrote on its website.
Neither regulator responded to CNBC's questions about SpaceX's statement.
Rush to rebuild
On July 25, 2024, a TCEQ environmental investigator conducted an “internal compliance review” to determine SpaceX’s compliance with wastewater regulations. The investigation found that SpaceX discharged industrial wastewater without a permit four times between March and July of this year.
Water-immersion systems with flame deflectors diffuse heat, sound and energy generated by orbital test flights and rocket launches. But SpaceX didn’t build the system at its Boca Chica launch site until it began test flights of the largest rocket ever built, Starship.
SpaceX is developing Starship to carry people and equipment to the moon, and if Musk eventually achieves his grand vision, he will seek to colonize Mars. On Starship’s first test flight in April 2023, the energy released from the rocket caused SpaceX’s concrete launch pad to explode and its spacecraft to explode in the air.
Chunks of concrete were thrown into a nearby nesting and migration site for some endangered species, and a 3.5-acre fire burned in Boca Chica State Park south of the launch pad. In response, environmental groups sued SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration, which authorized the launch.
With Musk aiming to launch another orbital test flight in one to two months, SpaceX has scrambled to rebuild the launch pad and install a new water pumping system to prevent it from exploding again. The company has bypassed the licensing process, according to regulators, which would have required it to meet pollutant discharge limits and say how to treat wastewater.
SpaceX conducted the first full pressure test of the water deluge system in July 2023. About a month later, on August 25, 2023, the EPA launched an investigation and requested information from the company about the wastewater discharge and more.
The agency issued a formal notice of violation to SpaceX on March 13, according to records obtained by CNBC.
On March 14, despite receiving the EPA’s notice a day earlier, SpaceX went ahead with its third test flight of Starship, again using the unauthorized water deluge system at the launch site.
The company achieved new milestones with the test flight, and Musk appeared triumphant. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX on a “successful test flight!” even though the rocket was lost during landing over the Indian Ocean.
Environmental engineer Eric Roche, whose blog ESG Hound focuses on business and sustainability, predicted that SpaceX would need a water-flooding system at the launch pad even before Starship’s first test flight. He was also among the first to criticize SpaceX for using such a system without proper permits.
Once agencies told SpaceX it was violating environmental rules, continuing to launch on Starbase exposed the company to greater legal risk, Roche said in an interview.
“Further wastewater discharges could lead to further investigations and criminal charges against the company or any of the individuals involved in licensing the releases,” he added.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that SpaceX has not yet received the green light to conduct another test flight of its Starship Super Heavy launch vehicle.
The Washington Post | The Washington Post | Getty Images
Years of violations
Roche also noted that after receiving a notice of violation from the EPA, SpaceX was required to apply for a permit within 30 days. The company did not submit its application until July 1, about 110 days later, according to a copy of its application available through the TCEQ’s Office of Public Records.
“They have been violating sanitation rules for years, and they continue to do so with what appears to be the FAA’s blessing,” Roach said.
In its statement Monday, SpaceX wrote that the deluge system “causes no harm to the environment.” The company said other permits SpaceX has obtained serve as a license to use it.
SpaceX’s 483-page permit application was evaluated by Kenneth Tjoe, a coastal ecologist based outside Austin. Tjoe, who has more than three decades of experience in water quality and coastal planning, told CNBC that the application was riddled with loopholes, lacking basic details about discharge volumes, waste temperatures and discharge locations.
Teague said he was particularly concerned about the concentration of mercury in wastewater from SpaceX’s water deluge system. Teague added that the levels revealed in the document represent “very significant exceedances of mercury water quality standards.”
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.”
High-temperature emissions, and pollutants such as mercury at high concentrations, can cause “significant negative impacts,” such as killing “small organisms” that make up seabirds' diets, Teague said.
“SpaceX's application fails to address this very serious concern,” he said.
SpaceX said in its response to X that “no detectable levels of mercury” were found in its samples. But SpaceX wrote in its permit application that the mercury concentration at one of the outlet sites was 113 micrograms per liter. State water quality standards call for levels of no more than 2.1 micrograms per liter for acute aquatic 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 that were scheduled for this week. The meetings were to discuss an environmental assessment of “SpaceX’s plan to increase the launch and landing of its Starship/Super Heavy vehicles at the Boca Chica launch site in Cameron County, Texas.”
The FAA did not provide a reason for the postponement and said new dates would be announced in the future.
Watch: High Above the Clouds
