Elon Musk's SpaceX wants to dump treated wastewater into South Texas preserve

After drawing environmentalists' ire this spring by raining debris from an exploded rocket over Port Isabel, billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX is now asking for permission to dump treated wastewater into a protected estuary overlooking South Padre Island. SpaceX — based in the South Texas town of Boca Chica — has asked Texas regulators for permission to dump up to 200,000 gallons of treated waste and sewage water daily into South Bay, an aquatic system at the tip of the Laguna Madre, according to documents obtained by news site Border Report. One of the few such hyper-saline bays in the world, South Bay was designated the state's first coastal preserve some four decades ago, Border Report notes.