[HN Gopher] SpaceX accused of dumping mercury into Texas waters ...
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SpaceX accused of dumping mercury into Texas waters for years
Author : geox
Score : 45 points
Date : 2024-08-12 19:52 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.popsci.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.popsci.com)
| frankharv wrote:
| There are people that find something wrong with nothing at all.
|
| ""environmental organizations published an open letter voicing
| anger with the tests while highlighting Starbase's proximity to
| indigenous sacred lands""
|
| How dare they get close to indigenous lands.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| > There are people that find something wrong with nothing at
| all.
|
| If you think mercury in the water is nothing at all please
| drink some and report back to us.
| avmich wrote:
| So is there mercury in the water in dangerous (not just above
| zero) amounts or not? I don't see that in the article. Can we
| get things straight?
| benopal64 wrote:
| There is a little-known actor... oh what was his name again? Oh
| yeah, Martin Sheen-- He narrated a documentary covering the
| effects of a tribe being downwind from a nuclear testing area.
| So perhaps there is some understandable concern about being
| downwind from an Elon Musk-supported facility or any large
| engineering facility.
|
| Here is a link to a review of the documentary:
| https://www.opb.org/article/2024/01/21/documentary-downwind-...
| DemocracyFTW2 wrote:
| > How dare they get close to indigenous lands
|
| Americans have long enough suffered at the hands of those who
| claim to have ancient or inalienable rights to everything
| including water, air, and land. It is about time Americans get
| their act together and take back what is rightfully theirs. /s
| olliej wrote:
| Reminds me of the "Indians go back to India", Jesus was
| American, etc :D
|
| (I do wonder if there are non-English Christians who also
| seriously argue "Jesus spoke {my native language here}" - it
| seems to be a very US evangelical specific thing but I am
| curious if there are similar non-English groups)
| renewedrebecca wrote:
| I've heard it argued that the KJV was somehow more accurate
| than the original manuscripts in the original languages.
| bell-cot wrote:
| The article gives no hint as to _why_ there are high levels of
| mercury in SpaceX 's water deluge system.
|
| Elon would not be trying to buff his "Evil Billionaire"
| rep...right?
| mlindner wrote:
| That's because there's the actual texas environmental report
| doesn't claim high levels of mercury in the samples. The high
| level comes from a typo of putting the decimal point in the
| wrong spot.
|
| https://www.tceq.texas.gov/downloads/permitting/wastewater/t...
| mrlonglong wrote:
| This is NOT true! I'm no fan of Musk but this is false.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Actual article: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/12/spacex-
| repeatedly-polluted-w...
| spikels wrote:
| SpaceX Responds:
|
| CNBC's story on Starship's launch operations in South Texas is
| factually inaccurate. ... We only use potable (drinking) water in
| the system's operation. ... 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. ...
|
| https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1823080774012481862
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| SpaceX saying that SpaceX did nothing wrong is a start, but it
| would be nice to get the same kind of refutation from more
| independent sources.
| aeternum wrote:
| You are hereby accused of being a scallywag! You must now
| stop whatever you're doing and find independent sources to
| refute the claim.
|
| If only we still believed in burden of proof.
| foobarqux wrote:
| This is the comment I made in the other thread [1]:
|
| It's nonsense, for example there is no "I used pure water in
| the input to the process" exemption; why would there be, the
| output is what matters. And I believe even unprocessed potable
| water can be illegal to dump due to the presence of
| chlorine/fluorine.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41229100
| olliej wrote:
| I think the headline conflates a bunch of things to make
| clickbait.
|
| It does seems there are accurate and correct complaints about EPA
| violations, etc at the Boca chica site, and there are also
| accusations of mercury (and presumably other materials) being
| detected.
|
| My reading of the article, and the plain text reading of the
| spacex statement mean I don't think there's sufficient factual
| basis to go from the known EPA violations to "put mercury in the
| water".
|
| The regulatory violations seem objectively true, but those
| regulations are in place because historically that lack of guards
| led to terrible dumping. So the regulations mean such stuff is
| detected early and punished if it does happen. However it's
| important to realize that the violations in the actual complaint
| are not "spacex dumped stuff" they are "spacex did not get the
| required approvals or let us do the testing". They're important
| issues, and need to be addressed, but the issues are very
| explicitly not "we have reason to believe that there were
| issues".
|
| I think a more practical comparison for us normies would be "you
| had a competent electrician rewire your house or a plumber do
| significant work without getting a permit or inspection". In
| reality for most cases people aren't trying to have their house
| catch fire or fill with .. stuff .. but legally you're required
| to get permits and inspections.
|
| Those permits and inspections exist to prevent/deter the kinds of
| people who _do_ try to do substandard work, but you can't write a
| law that says "the only people subject to this law are the ones
| trying to violate it", so everyone has to do stuff that for most
| people isn't necessary.
|
| Alternatively it's illegal to drive a car without functioning
| brakes, so in many countries your have to have your car checked
| annually. Most people aren't going to drive an unsafe car, but to
| protect "most" from some, everyone has to get a WOF(or similar).
|
| So my reading of the article is the EPA complaint currently is
| just "they didn't follow the approval and testing parts of the
| regulatory requirements", nothing more.
|
| The article then brings in a bunch of other allegations that
| aren't in the actual EPA complaint to try and put those
| accusations on the level as the actual complaint, because yay
| clicks!
|
| It's quite possible those other allegations are true (because
| that's pretty standard corporate behavior - prior corp behaviour
| is why the EPA and similar exist), but equally they could be
| false (there's no additional pollutants), false (the pollutants
| are there, but from old dumping), false (the pollutants are there
| but from a different company), etc
|
| Musk is a shitty person, and corporate behavior when awful
| chemicals are involved is often garbage, but misrepresenting
| things merely provides ammunition when groups are actually doing
| illegal stuff to say "look, this is the same lies and BS they
| wrote here" so I really wish it would stop.
|
| If people want to shit on space Karen they should focus on the
| awful shit we know he does, there's no need to invent stuff.
| foobarqux wrote:
| The first problem is that if you don't get the permits you
| aren't allowed to be launching the rockets.
|
| The second problem is he has a history of actually illegally
| discharging toxins for years (e.g. Fremont paint factory, not
| far from a school incidentally).
| cwillu wrote:
| "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."
| foobarqux wrote:
| They need a permit _before_ operating, there is no
| exemption process.
|
| From ESGHound who initially broke this story _years_ ago:
| "This is a lie. The EPA cannot, and did not authorize
| future discharges. Nowhere in the compliance order does EPA
| authorize future illegal discharges".
| BertoldVdb wrote:
| How does the mercury get into the water?
| mlindner wrote:
| There isn't any significant levels of mercury in the water. The
| "high level" comes from a typo.
|
| https://www.tceq.texas.gov/downloads/permitting/wastewater/t...
| jiggawatts wrote:
| This is what dirty politics looks like. This!
|
| Irrespective of how you personally feel about Musk, consider that
| this is targeting a company with thousands of employees run by...
| its CEO Glenn Shotwell, not Musk.
|
| SpaceX is terrifying to the competition: both dinosaurs like ULA,
| and also newcomers like Blue Origin.
|
| The article states: _"In total, the Harlingen region received 14
| complaints alleging environmental impacts from the Facility's
| deluge system."_
|
| Umm... what!? Fourteen? Fourteen locals were wading through the
| local mud within spitting distance of the launch towers taking
| what... water samples? It's tap water! If it has mercury in it
| then the real article should be about _mercury in the tap water!_
|
| "I have a complaint to make! Yes I would like to remain
| anonymous, but you can call me... umm... Beff Jezos. Yes, I'm
| personally and financially affected by SpaceX activities and
| would like to file a complaint."
|
| The popsci article was definitely written by an anti-Musk hack. I
| seriously wouldn't surprised if he took a bribe to write a "hit
| piece", because if he didn't he's doing dirty work for
| billionaires for free.
|
| We shouldn't reach for the stars, unless every local office of
| everything is fully satisfied that all of the paperwork is filed.
|
| Speaking of which: _"Neither regulator answered CNBC's questions
| regarding SpaceX's statement."_
|
| You don't talk about corruption to the media. It's shameful what
| they're doing, otherwise they'd be _happy_ to clarify the issue
| to the public.
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(page generated 2024-08-12 23:02 UTC)