Elon Musk's Boring Company wants to dump wastewater into the Colorado River

The Boring Company,?Elon Musk’s?Central Texas-based?tunneling and infrastructure operation, is seeking a permit that would allow it to dump up to 142,500 gallons of treated wastewater a day into the Colorado River from its property in Bastrop County.

The Boring Company, which was founded in California but recently moved its headquarters to Pflugerville, is looking to build a wastewater treatment facility on its research and development site in Bastrop County. The company is seeking to dispose of treated wastewater directly into the Colorado River below Lady Bird Lake, and it also requested the option of disposing the wastewater via irrigation onto 63 acres of grassland it owns.

Many industrial companies, as well as municipalities, already discharge treated wastewater into Texas streams, but the permit has drawn concern from nearby residents and environmental advocacy groups, who say the permit request has the potential to set a precedent that could have long-term impacts on parts of the Colorado River.

Treated wastewater is defined as industrial or human waste that has been cleaned to specific standards set by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. If wastewater is improperly treated or levels of pollutants are too high, it can lead to issues in the streams.

Boring Company request would increase wastewater in three stages

The Boring Company's application was submitted to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality by Gapped Bass LLC, an entity affiliated with the Boring Company and other Musk operations. The state environmental agency received the application in July and has done an initial administrative review.?Its next step will be technical review to develop a draft permit, during which public comments will be allowed. From there, the agency could hold a public hearing.

The permit said that initially, the wastewater would be used to irrigate land adjacent to the treatment facility, but contingency flow and future flow would be routed across the company's property and under FM 1209 to the Colorado River. The Boring Co. said it plans to build 1,500 feet of underground piping from the site to the river.

The permit request also asks for the commission to allow the company to increase the amount of waste it is authorized to dump in three stages. The first phase would allow the company to dump up to 22,500 gallons per day of wastewater. Two additional phases would authorize an additional 60,000 gallons each, for the total 142,500 gallons a day by stage three.

The application describes the wastewater as a mix of water used in an industrial process and domestic wastewater, which would "intermingle" during the treatment process. The domestic wastewater would come from on-site breakrooms, bathrooms, sinks and 15 single family employee housing units. The industrial wastewater would be from a metal cutting process that uses jets to cut metal, the application said.

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Environmental groups raise questions

Brian Zabcik, advocacy director of environmental advocacy group Save Barton Creek Association, said any chemical, even those used in the treatment process, can lead to issues if levels are too high. For example, too much phosphorus, which is created when domestic wastewater is treated, can lead to algae growth, which can be bad for the ecosystem, drinking water and swimming.

"We tend to like think of pollutants as being a label for something that's bad, like mercury or arsenic, but anything can be a pollutant if there's too much of it," Zabcik said.

Steve Box, executive director of the nonprofit?Environmental Stewardship, said the stretch of the Colorado River in that would potentially be affected has some of the highest water quality standards available in the state. He said it's crucial these standards are upheld by the state environmental commission in regulating industrial wastewater, industrial stormwater and domestic wastewater discharged into the river.?That section of the river is designated as both "exceptional" for aquatic life use, and "primary contact 1" for recreational use activities that are presumed to involve a significant risk of ingesting the water,?such as swimming, and is designated to provide water for use as a public water system for drinking water supply, Box said.

"Certainly, Environmental Stewardship, the local residents and communities are very interested in maintaining the high water quality standard in these sections of the river that were hard won in the 1980s and '90s," Box said.

According to the state commission, the Boring Company will have to consider local environmental conditions, including other watershed disposal, to ensure other designated uses are protected, including recreational use, public water supply and exceptional aquatic life use.

Zabcik said the company's wastewater amount would be on the low side for wastewater treatment plants overall, such as a municipal plant serving a whole city or part of a city, but said it is on the high side for a single-site plant serving a single factory. Industrial wastewater permits are not issued very often in Central Texas, and many companies don't have their own treatment facilities. Zabcik said it is also unusual to see a company apply for both industrial and domestic wastewater.

Zabcik said reuse of wastewater for irrigation, as part of the application proposes, would be considered a beneficial reuse of water and a preferred method of disposal by many environmental groups.

"We want to see treated wastewater reused as much as possible. When water is reused, then you don't have to dump it into the Colorado River, you don't have to spray it onto a vacant lot, and more importantly, when you use that water to irrigate your landscaping, or a golf course or whatever, you're actually expanding your water supply," Zabcik said.

Zabcik said the permit application process marks a key time for the public to weigh in.

"This is a really crucial period. Right after the permit is filed is one of the few times that the public really has an opportunity to ask TCEQ to please make sure that any permit that they issue has limits that will truly protect," Zabcik said.

The state commission has already received dozens of comments related to the permit request, with most expressing opposition to the permit. The comments expressed concerns about the industrial wastewater's impact on the quality of river for activities such as swimming, boating and fishing, as well as potentially disrupting aquatic life or farming activities in the area. Several comments also ask for the commission to hold a hearing on the permit.

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This isn't the first time The Boring Company has faced pushback

The opposition to the proposed permit follows previous pushback from neighbors about the company's activities on the site. In September, the Bastrop County Commissioners Court?delayed a vote to approve for the company's preliminary plans to consider complaints from nearby residents and to make sure the company had all its necessary permits.?

At the time, nearby residents expressed a concern about light pollution; noise at different hours of the day and night; traffic; concerns about sewage and water plans; and allegations that the company was using the site for living quarters without applying for proper permits.??

Separate from the wastewater permit request, the Boring Company also has been issued two violations by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality since 2021, including failure to properly obtain a Texas pollution discharge elimination system construction general permit.

The Boring Company is involved with a number of product lines based around tunneling. It is also working on loop services to transport passengers between stations using autonomous vehicles at up to 150 miles per hour. It has two operational tunnels, a 1.1-mile test tunnel in Hawthorne, Calif., and a?0.8-mile tunnel underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center.?

The company has been increasingly taking a foothold in Central Texas in recent years, with a commercial space in Pflugerville and its research and development site in Bastrop County. The company is working to build an 80,000-square-foot manufacturing and warehouse facility on that property, where the company plans to test its tunneling equipment and dig "as many tunnels as needed for research and development purposes," according to filings with the state.

The Boring Company has already started work on its Bastrop County site and is likely already digging test tunnels. Musk recently tweeted a video of the company's Prufrock machine at work this week. The application gave more details into the company's plans for the site, including that the company expects up to 100 employees a day will be on the site and that there are already several warehouses and office buildings, 15 on-site employee housing units, a recreational court, and parking. It also said future plans include an on-site bistro or cafe, more employee housing and more parking.

The Boring Company is in preliminary talks with various entities in Central Texas about potential tunnel projects, and it is under consideration for a project in Kyle, where the Austin suburb is considering approving a pedestrian tunnel built by the company. The company also is?planning to build a 220,000-square-foot warehouse not far from Tesla's manufacturing site in Travis County.