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by foobarqux 649 days ago
I wouldn't trust any analysis that SpaceX submits itself given Musk's long history of lying, including right now on this very subject. Others have pointed out problems in the way the water is being sampled (surface water vs ground water) but I'm not an expert. It is certainly possible that no serious contamination has already occurred.

But the way it works is not that you dump stuff out of your factory and then, after getting caught, try to run some tests to show it's okay. It's almost impossible to remove contaminants out of the water after the fact so the way it works is that you go through a process with the government where you show that you are not going to dump contaminants into the ground, then they issue a permit, then you can discharge the water. Otherwise you would have people doing what Musk is doing now, which is to dump the water first and if there is any irreversible contamination say "oops, my bad".
1 comments
bryanlarsen 649 days ago
You don't have to trust SpaceX. You have to trust " TCEQ, the FAA, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ". Some of those reports are public.
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foobarqux 649 days ago
Contrary to what SpaceX has claimed USFWS does not regulate industrial waste water discharge (unsurprisingly). The TCEQ has said they are in violation. FAA has paused launches pending an investigation. Both should have done this many months ago.

In any case with respect to existing contamination the only thing I would trust is an independent third party testing lab testing the water with the data made public. I don't know why you would want anything else.

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bryanlarsen 649 days ago
Their violations are:

1. They misplaced a decimal point when transferring a value from the lab report to the summary

2. They filled in the wrong form. They paid a $2000 fine for this violation.

The lab reports are public.

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foobarqux 649 days ago
This is just false. They don't have a permit to discharge water.
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bryanlarsen 649 days ago
The permit number is WQ0016342001.
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foobarqux 649 days ago
That is not an industrial waster water permit.

https://www.threads.net/@esg.hound/post/CzvTxp-uZe8

"That is for a domestic wastewater permit (toilet water treatment)"

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