Elon Musks Texas Campus Raises Environmental Concerns For Locals The Washington Post

Bastrop County, Texas. Chap Ambrose has always been a fan of Elon Musk. He spent $100 to get on the waiting list for Tesla's first pickup in 2019 and bought internet service from Musk's satellite provider.
But then the billionaire's businesses move in next to the developer who works on his hilltop farm.
Two years later, vast construction sites and large white warehouses occupy green pastures where cattle graze. A semi rolls along narrow country roads. And the companies, rocket maker SpaceX and tunnel builder Boring, are asking the state for permission to dump treated sewage into the nearby Colorado River.
"I just don't believe that the leaders there value the environment and these shared resources," said Ambrose, who leads a group of local residents who are pushing Moscow agencies to slow development and concerns about environmental risks. "I will say I'm still a [Elon] fan, but I want him to do better here and be a good neighbor."
Bastrop, a rural area 30 minutes east of Austin, is reacting to the dust that hides the rise of a new empire in Texas. His companies spend billions of dollars on campuses across the state, from the SpaceX rocket site in the Gulf of Mexico to the massive Tesla factory in Austin that produces 5,000 Model Y cars a week.
Earlier this month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) congratulated the billionaire when Tesla built two lithium recycling plants near Corpus Christi to boost the company's electric supply of car batteries. The governor said: "There is no greater entrepreneur in the world than Elon Musk.
Standing in front of a Cybertruck decorated with American and Texas flags, Musk thanked the state for its support and moving forward.
"That's how we work," said Musk. Who was in the spotlight last week for a heated Twitter debate with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who announced his run for president?
While he has won praise for creating thousands of jobs and building high-tech factories in Texas, cementing his status as a powerhouse in the state, Musk has faced a barrage of complaints from critics and regulators who say he is moving too fast.
Last month, minutes after a SpaceX rocket exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the Federal Aviation Administration suspended the company's launch program, saying SpaceX "must conduct an analysis to determine whether the public is being exposed to unacceptable risks." The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the explosion sent "multiple large chunks, stainless steel sheets, metal and other objects" into the area, as well as a cloud of concrete dust that deposited the material about 7 miles (11 km) from the launch site. . .
In a lawsuit against the FAA, wildlife groups claim that the SpaceX program has caused serious environmental damage to the area.
Musk's move to Texas comes as his Twitter dominance has made him a more controversial figure on the national stage. His erratic social media campaign and adoption of some conspiracy theories have caused a digital firestorm in recent months.
"I'll say what I mean, and if that means losing money, so be it," Musk told CNBC after Tesla's May 16 shareholder meeting in Austin.
He and his company did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
"He's incredibly brilliant, incredibly successful and has done some very difficult things," said Morris Schweitzer, a professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. But this success, he added, "gave him a sense of pride to feel qualified and special, which pushed him to work harder."
In Bastrop County, there are signs of Musk's fast-paced politics. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality suspended production of the masks for poor erosion protection and a number of other violations. The Texas Department of Transportation reprimanded Boring for construction of unauthorized haul roads that raised traffic safety concerns, and Bastrop County issued violations for unauthorized sewage tanks.
"For The Boring Company, our employees and consultants repeatedly pressured us to expedite and approve incomplete and inconsistent permit applications," Robert Pugh, then director of engineering and development, wrote in an email to a colleague. summer
Ambrose and his wife, Maura Ambrose, first learned of their new neighbors in May 2021 when Maura saw young men in "skinny jeans and Converse" wandering the property. At first he was simply told that they were from Pflugerville, a suburb of Austin. Under pressure, they came to an agreement with Boring, which aimed to dig large tunnels under cities for discharge.
Chap Ambrose comes to introduce himself and helps the workers move the pots. When he asked to see their development plans through Gate, they first asked him to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), Ambrose recalls. Another neighbor, Hope Valley Tree Farm owner Steve Heap, said Boring employees asked him to sign a non-disclosure agreement when he went to discuss selling the tree. He refused, and they bought his plants anyway.
In 2022, the Drilling Company began construction of a large warehouse and other buildings for the production and testing of tunneling equipment. Moments later, SpaceX began construction on a massive building across the street.
The job has to be "24/7 ... being the center of attention all night long," said Maura Ambrose.
The Boring site has featured mobile homes for employees, as well as a pool and clubhouse, and the company has submitted plans to the county to build a Montessori school, according to public documents. He also revealed plans to build 110 homes on nearby land, which The Wall Street Journal reported is the company's big urban project for Musk's employees.
Soon they started receiving complaints from the regulatory authorities. In February 2022, Bastrop County notified Boring that it was using an unpermitted septic tank and gave it 60 days to correct the problem, according to public records. The unauthorized system was still working more than two months later, according to a May 17 breach notification.
In September 2021, the Texas Department of Transportation found that Boring had built an unauthorized road onto its property in a location that increased the risk of traffic accidents, according to an email from the agency. A few months later, the problem persisted.
The representatives of the department "clarified that their unauthorized crossings pose a danger to the population. The district office of Bastrop clarified that this danger should be reduced. The Boring Company opposes some of these mitigations,” Department of Transportation official Miguel Arellano wrote in an April 21, 2022 email to colleagues.
Intrigued by the speed and scale of construction, Ambrose began hovering his drone over the construction site to take photos and post news on social media, and created the Keep Bastrop Boring website, which he advertised on a local billboard.
He shared a video of workers digging tunnels under a road to connect Boring and SpaceX, and filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) about soil he found that he believes may be contaminated with chemicals. :
He released footage of a work crew bulldozing trees and filed a lawsuit against SpaceX to the TCEQ after filming the pipe that pumps water from the construction site to a roadside ditch. TCEQ has committed a violation omission of "water with precipitation".
Skip Connett, an organic farmer in the area, said Musk's projects are part of a development boom that threatens the environment as Austin's eastward expansion and other industrial projects increase truck traffic and pollution.
"Between Elon Musk coming here and mining all the sand and gravel ... all of a sudden this bucolic, pastoral farmland turned into over a thousand acres of industrial land," Connett said. “No zoning, no regulations. It's the Wild West."
Bastrop County Commissioner Mel Hamner said the increase is "more than this county is prepared to handle," but added that officials do not have broad authority to affect it.
“It's Texas. It's called ownership," Hamner said. "As long as you own the property and follow the laws of the state, you can do whatever you want."
State officials told Chap Ambrose in September that the Boring Company had requested a permit from the facility to treat wastewater and discharge it onto their land or into the Colorado River. Ambrose feared the plan would contaminate the area's water supply and urged his state senator to hold a public hearing in March.
A local Hampton Inn filled the convention room with hundreds of people. TCEQ staff were on hand to answer questions. Boring sent Rajiv Patel, an environmental consultant, to speak, but not to any of its executives.
A TCEQ lawyer said the agency initially determined the permit would meet "statutory and regulatory requirements." But the residents and environmentalists in the room were worried.
Bastrop Mayor Connie Schroeder urged the company to clean up wastewater from the city's new plant. "We all know it's better for Colorado," he said. Patel said Boring hopes to do so in the long term, but there is no connection yet to the city plant.
Local homeowner Amy Weir says Musk's companies have "done some amazing things for sure" but don't need to "reinvent sewer treatment" if the city is ready for it. He added that the fines for violation of permits are much lower. "The owner of those businesses spent $44 billion on Twitter, and it didn't affect their ability to continue this business," he said.
Ambrose took the microphone and blasted Boring for working offline at the city's sewage plant and refusing to answer questions during the hearing. "The management team is missing. And they play games. But we are not like that," he said.
Judah Ross, a Bastrop real estate agent, later said he had come to the meeting on a neutral issue but objected because he found consultant Boring's answers "misleading."
Kasturi, he says, creates products that "change the world."
"I love Elon, and we need more art," Ross said. "I don't want him to bake in the river."

source

Why Elon Musk Is Planning Cities for Tesla, SpaceX, and Boring Company Workers WSJ