SpaceX did not obtain a permit from the EPA to discharge industrial process water into the ground and therefore did not go through the steps the EPA requires to show that they aren't contaminating the water. I don't know if the tests they ran are reasonable or acceptable to the EPA --- we have expert agencies for a reason --- but in any case are only a part of the permitting process, where I imagine you have to show a number of things like how the contaminants will not build up over time, documenting mitigation and ongoing testing procedures, change processes etc.
It's funny too that apparently it's simultaneously tap water and also water that contains contaminants not found in tap water and that requires testing.
I guess at the end of the day I prefer the American government does everything it possibly can to fast-track these SpaceX launches. And I prefer the American government and the American citizen prioritizes space supremacy over the local environment of a launch site facility.
I think studies should be done to understand the environmental effects of the launch site. I think mitigations for pollutants (etc) should be put into place. I think there are reasonable requests that the government can make, and SpaceX (being a business) has different incentives. But I also see a clear political bias from the current administration, and we can't have that sort of thing preventing real and obvious technological progress. Our children need to see America achieve something great and that achievement needs to be tangible. Not a commodity. Not something ephemeral or stuck in "the cloud" somewhere. I understand that Kamala Harris wishes she had the censorship machine that Twitter provided her in 2020, but those days are gone and she and her boss need to put America first and find a way to put some rockets into space.
There are significant questions about how they do their testing. Apropos of anything else, the water is generally superheated which causes issues with microorganisms in the soil.
Saying "hey, below level trace contaminants over here, later on" isn't conclusive.
SpaceX IS being deliberately deceptive when they say (and emphasize in bold, in case we're dense): "Again, this is drinking water". Great. Let's do what they did in Flint, and have Musk and SpaceX take a drink from that "drinking water".
Remember, according to Tesla, FSD is already dozens to hundreds of times safer than human drivers[1].
[1] On the subset of roads, in the subset of weather, in the subset of driving conditions where it may be activated, when compared to "all human drivers, on all roads, in all weather, in all conditions". And don't forget, if airbags don't deploy, it's not an accident, according to Tesla.[2]
[2] This includes collisions at 20mph or more where the passenger restraint subsystem determines that it is safer not to deploy airbags (first gen airbags were dumb - impact above a certain force, deploy. Current airbags take into account angle of impact, deflections, etc., before deploying). Tesla amazingly also doesn't consider it to be an accident for their stats when the airbags didn't deploy because the vehicle was so damaged or destroyed by the accident that the system could not or did not deploy.
So forgive some of us for taking any Musk venture condescending press release with a grain of salt.
Drinking contaminated water to show it is safe is such a bad trope and doesn't prove anything; it's just the sort of stunt Musk would love to pull and we just may see it.
Unfortunately that is not how it will be perceived. If he drinks the water it will be taken to be proof that there is no problem with the water. This stunt has occurred before where a CEO drinks water that is later shown to be contaminated to prove it is safe.
