[jiggawatts]

The area around the launch sites is used for neither.

As others have said, the letter of the law is being applied in a way that appears either punitive or corrupt. In all honesty if a few decades later it turned out that Bazos or Boeing were behind this I wouldn’t be shocked in the least.

“We can’t beat them with technology so we’ll beat them with red tape!”

[foobarqux]

You are badly confused, they are officially part of the "Waters of the United States" and obviously mix with what becomes your drinking water.

In your bizarro world you could just dump toxic water in most places.

[jiggawatts]

The water is tap water. If it's toxic, then the source of the tap water should be punished for poisoning the civilian population, not the users of the tap water.

The fuel is just natural gas. Again, if it contains toxins such as mercury, then the source of the fuel should be punished because they are certainly delivering it to civilian users for cooking, or to industrial users elsewhere.

Why are we not hearing about those other linked pollution incidents!?

Or, is it that the pollution doesn't exist -- it is merely a sufficiently plausible fiction that is being used as an excuse to halt their progress?

Because from where I sit, it definitely looks like the latter.

Before you respond: Please very specifically explain why it is perfectly logical that there is no uproar about the "poisons" in cooking gas or the town water supply, but SpaceX's use of the same justifies stopping multi-billion dollar projects. But... not in any way investigating where the "poisons" might have come from. Just stopping SpaceX. No other actions. Just that.

[concordDance]

How does this mixing happen? Consider the location of the deluge system and consider its right next to the ocean (which you really really shouldn't be drinking).

Do you actually think it plausible that any human could get sick when trying to drink their home water due to this discharge? Or are you just being contarian here?