Boring and SpaceX withdraw wastewater permits
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Environmental Stewardship Celebrates Permit Withdrawal By Boring Company and SpaceX
Fundraising Launched to Challenge Larger Wastewater Expansion in LCRA Park
BASTROP, TEXAS, MAY 9, 2024 – – Environmental Stewardship applauds the recent decision by Elon Musk’s The Boring Company (TBC) and SpaceX to withdraw their state permit applications to discharge a combined 348,000 gallons of wastewater per day into the Colorado River. Instead, SpaceX has agreed to tie into the City of Bastrop’s wastewater system. TBC has not announced its plans.
“This is a victory for the Colorado River and all the people who are concerned about its health and who depend upon it for drinking water, recreation and agriculture,” said Environmental Stewardship Executive Director Steve Box.. “We can now give our full attention to our contested case hearing on the McKinney Roughs wastewater permit application that will impact everyone who visits the park and enjoys the river there.”
That pending permit would allow Corix Utilities to increase wastewater flows into the river from the current 50,000 gallons to 500,000 gallons per day in the middle of LCRA’s McKinney Roughs Nature Park, three miles upstream of Musk’s rapidly expanding industrial facilities. This outdated facility has struggled to meet permitting requirements, receiving 13 environmental violations since 2019.
On April 24, The Boring Company withdrew its permit request from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) as SpaceX had done in March. The withdrawals mark the end of a two-year campaign that rallied local opposition and gained national attention. Spearheading the campaign was a broad coalition of riverkeepers and environmentalists, including Chap Ambrose, who has documented living next to the tunneling company at KeepBastropBoring.com. Formal complaints by Ambrose and Environmental Stewardship members have resulted in multiple county and state environmental violations at TBC, including failure to obtain a stormwater permit.
“This is a big win for Bastrop and another example of regular people showing up and making all this growth better,” said Ambrose. “The river is not healthy and that affects everybody. All this investment we’re seeing in the area is a chance for us to clean things up and be an example of growth that doesn’t extinguish nature.”
On March 10, Bastrop City Manager Sylvia Carrillo announced an agreement with SpaceX to extend service from the city’s new wastewater facility to its Starlink manufacturing facility on FM 1209. Both the city and SpaceX called the agreement a “win-win” outcome that will take up to two years to complete. It is not clear how the two companies will handle industrial wastewater from their operations during the interim. TBC has a county-permitted wastewater spray field for the dozen or so mobile home residences on its site but not for its 80,000-sq-ft manufacturing facility. SpaceX has no wastewater facility and has relied on porta-potties for its employees. At the time the city announced the tie-in agreement, it did not include TBC, whose permit would have discharged up to 148,000 gallons per day into the river.
Colorado River Impaired
While SpaceX praised the agreement, TBC did not comment on it at the time and was facing a pending contested case hearing filed by Environmental Stewardship. More than 400 people attended a public meeting on the permit in March 2023. When TCEQ released its decision to approve the permit earlier this year, Box, Ambrose and other affected parties filed for a contested case hearing to oppose the decision.
The petitioners contend that Sections 1428 and 1434 of the river – the 70-mile stretch from Longhorn Dam to La Grange – have degraded to the extent that they now meet the state’s designation of a Category 5 impaired waterway. Citing lapses in TCEQ’s monitoring of water quality and aquatic life, and citing its own analysis of TCEQ data from the river, Environmental Stewardship rejects TCEQ’s determination that Section 1428, which has been designated as having exceptional water quality, is not impaired. Adding it to TCEQ’s long list of impaired waterways would require the state to develop limits on total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for wastewater, which would place new limits on future permits.
Richard Martin, a long-time Bastrop resident who has fished the river for more than 50 years, signed on to the Corix contested case as a recreational user of the river. He has seen first-hand its deterioration as unprecedented growth in the county has brought not only industry and residential subdivisions along the river corridor but three new sand and gravel operations mining in the river bend opposite Musk’s properties.
“I feel like I’ve lost my river,” he said, noting that the fish population has been reduced at an alarming rate in recent years. “Now I have some hope that more attention will be given to protecting this threatened resource we all depend on.”
Andrew Wier, executive director for the Simsboro Aquifer Water Defense Fund, SAWDF, has been working with two developers farther upstream to encourage a more environmentally-friendly approach to releasing wastewater flows into tributaries feeding the river. One developer has agreed to enhance the wastewater outfall to better integrate the effluent before it reaches the river. Both Environmental Stewardship and SAWDF are concerned about potential contamination to the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer,a major source of drinking water for Bastrop County. The Colorado River and the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer exchange water along 42-miles of riverbed in Bastrop County.
"Every wastewater release into the river is a potential for contamination,” said Wier. “The City of Bastrop is transitioning to groundwater from the Simsboro formation of the aquifer. The city's new water wells are only a mile from the Colorado river, downstream of the Corix and other outfalls. As the county and the city grow, we must be careful not to contaminate our own water wells."
Among other requests, the riverkeepers are asking Corix to install water quality monitoring at its outfall, just upstream from where park visitors enter the river. Critics of the wastewater plant’s expansion – meant to also service development along Highway 71 – say it is not a good fit with the nature park and should be removed to a more suitable location.
Environmental Stewardship is fundraising to cover legal fees associated with contesting the Corix permit in McKinney Roughs. Its goal of $50,000 will enable it to make its case before the State Office of Administrative Hearings, which is not yet scheduled.
Help save the Texas Colorado River from negligent permitting. Donate at https://gofund.me/761df595
Contact: Steve Box, info@envstewardship.org, 512-300-6609
About Environmental Stewardship: Environmental Stewardship a 501(c)(3) nonprofit since 2007 became a Waterkeeper Affiliate organization on September 23, 2016. As a new Waterkeeper Affiliate, Environmental Stewardship works to protect and preserve the Texas Colorado River, associated aquifers, and the bays and estuaries of the Texas Gulf Coast.
