Then drink it, Rocket Jesus. DRINK IT.

"it was just water"

I have dealt with the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. What I can say with absolute certainty is that it takes moving a fucking mountain for the TCEQ to do a god damn thing. Pictures of raw sewage covering a neighborhood development weren't good enough for them to do any investigation because they suspected the pictures were taken while standing on the property, which is trespassing (there was no fence which is one of the basic requirements in Texas to be able to define trespassing). Raising the level of the entire property, thus completely changing the waterflow of the area? Sure, it was done for the express purpose of changing the waterflow, but unless an independent analysis was paid for by the neighboring properties TCEQ wouldn't even lift a finger to look at it.

If Spacex is getting fined by TCEQ their violations must be fucking gross and extreme. Spacex sucks so fucking much.

I deal with exactly this kind of thing on a daily basis. Even if musk is telling the truth, which he likely isn't because he's a nazi enabling billionaire freak, he is wrong. Read on dear hexbears, if you would like to learn about water quality criteria and what it means for water to be potable.

Potable water is generated by taking raw water from the environment, treating it to remove contaminants/pathogens, and disinfecting it. Raw water needs to be clean enough that it can be cleaned up to drink. Clean enough means limited amounts of shit that can cause human harm (for example, heavy metals like arsenic or mercury) or taste weird (like elevated levels of sulphate) or be weirdly coloured (like high levels of organic tannins). All of the above are examples of contaminants that typical potable water treatment systems do not remove. Potable water treatment systems remove things like turbidity/sediment, some oil and grease, pathogens (bacteria). Once water has had this junk removed, it is only potable for a little while. If you leave a non-chlorinated glass of water out, it'll start growing bacteria almost immediately, some of which can make people sick. As such, municipal water treatment also involves adding chlorine in sufficient amounts to leave a small amount of residual chlorine. Adding some chlorine kills bacteria that are already in the raw water, and the residual chlorine prevents them from growing back while water is traveling through pipes from the treatment plant to your home.

So, chlorine is a disinfectant. It kills bacteria and pathogens. Residual chlorine is in potable water. As a disinfectant, chlorine kills all kinds of other stuff too - pretty much all life is damaged by it, including the life that lives in wetlands (fish, amphibians, invertebrates etc.). Industrial wastewater that has been treated for discharge to the environment should never have chlorine in it. Potable water always has chlorine in it. Water quality guidelines vary by jurisdiction, but probably the level of chlorine in this potable water was 50-100 times higher than what is acceptable in an aquatic environment. The potable water discharged to this wetland was probably acutely toxic to aquatic life there (acutely toxic meaning it kills critters within a day or so of exposure).

So chlorine alone could have warranted this fine. However, drinking water is not the most stringent guideline for water uses. Humans are actually fairly tolerant of junk in drinking water compared to other forms of life. Amphibians for example are much more sensitive to contaminants in water than humans. As home to amphibians and other sensitive organisms, discharge to wetlands can require better quality water than standard drinking water quality.

Also I will post ppb at anyone who smugposts at me about chloramine

Its a $3000 fine, elon you fucking muppet, cry me a river.

Funny someone went to the effort of making it look like old twitter

Wetlands are extremely fragile ecosystems and dumping even clean water into them can cause permanent disruption. Texan marshes are really special to me and every year they shrink, the wild life dies, and more of the land is reclaimed for nonsense like more suburbs.

"I'm not an idiot, I'm not going to drink that, but it would be perfectly safe"

Do you have any idea how egregiously you have to fuck shit up to get the TCEQ to give a fuck about the environment? lmao

Even if it was potable (it's not) its gonna pick up and dump stuff in as run off

And even if it's pure chromatography grade distilled water being dumped, dumping large quantities can fuck up the environment, especially in estuaries and seawater. Imagine a species that can only survive in salt water, having to navigate through a giant plume of fresh water.

I've seen what is passed off as potable water in this country, I don't think he's beating the fine with that argument

the HOA is spraying the area I live in with chemicals of some sort to do some sort of pesticide whatever, ick

I found this out because they had to send us something to let us know including a disclosure of what it is they're spraying for public safety, and in that spot on the form it just says proprietary

Neat huh?

Permanently Deleted

Another coward invokes then flees the call of the Devil's Milkshake

"Do you think I'm an idiot!"

Remember that time John Hickenlooper drank fracking fluid?

There should be an anti-treats crew, my dogs in the actually hating capitalism crew are my only true road dogs

$4k to musk wouldnt even be worth picking up if it fell out of his pocket whilst walking across a street.

Pathetic, even for a fine.

Twitter classic wtf