SpaceX accused of dumping polluted Starship wastewater in Texas for years
www.popsci.com
The bombshell allegations may violate the EPA's Clean Water Act.

SpaceX’s Starship launches at the company’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas, have allegedly been contaminating local bodies of water with mercury for years. The news arrives in an exclusive CNBCreport on August 12, which cites internal documents and communications between local Texas regulators and the Environmental Protection Agency.

SpaceX’s fourth Starship test launch in June was its most successful so far—but the world’s largest and most powerful rocket ever built continues to wreak havoc on nearby Texas communities, wildlife, and ecosystems. But after repeated admonishments, reviews, and ignored requests, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) have had enough.

  • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
    54·
    3 months ago

    Do you know what the clouds coming out of the engines at shut down and start up are? Methane and oxygen. Do you think injecting methane into the upper atmosphere does the earth any favours?

    • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
      25·
      3 months ago

      Huh, if only NASA Earth’s science budget could stretch farther somehow so they could better monitor and tell us… now I wonder how they could reduce their mission costs by orders of magnitude…

        • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
          11·
          3 months ago

          No they’re not. You’re sitting here asking open ended questions like “do you think that will be good for the upper atmosphere”.

            • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
              11·
              3 months ago

              No, you said that NASA is monitoring methane emissions in the upper atmosphere and that it’s harming us.

              Please provide your source for that claim.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                11·
                3 months ago

                The article I showed you about SpaceX destroying the ozone layer was not talking about methane:

                Researchers at the University of Southern California released a study saying that satellites are significantly damaging Earth’s ozone layer. As their materials burn up upon reentry, leaving behind particle pollutants made up of aluminum oxides, which are “known catalysts for chlorine activation that depletes ozone in the stratosphere.”

                Since 2016, the ozone layer has seen eight times as many of those pollutants, with an estimated 17 metric tons in 2022

                I guess you didn’t read it.

                But yes, NASA does monitor methane emissions.

                https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasas-new-earth-space-mission/

                • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
                  1·
                  3 months ago

                  Lol I know. Then you brought up their methane missions.

                  Your ‘bashing everything remotely associated with a villain’ is just as flawed as people’s hero worship. You see company’s as their CEO, I see them as a large collection of workers.