Elon Musk is facing criticism from residents in Texas as the potential actions of his companies in the state have raised environmental concerns.
In Bastrop County, locals said fast development activities by Mr Musk’s companies are affecting the ecology of the area, according to a new report in The Washington Post.
In December 2021, Tesla officially moved its corporate headquarters from Silicon Valley to a large factory under construction outside of Austin, Texas.
Mr Musk’s companies, rocket manufacturer SpaceX and tunnelling company Boring, are seeking state permission to dump treated wastewater into the nearby Colorado river, the report said.
“I love Elon, and we need more industry here,” Judah Ross, a Bastrop real estate agent was quoted as saying to the outlet.
“I just don’t want him to dump his poop in the river.”
The billionaire’s companies are expanding across Texas by setting up campuses.
This includes SpaceX’s rocket launchpad on the Gulf of Mexico and a giant Tesla factory in Austin, producing 5,000 Model Ys a week.
Residents in Bastrop County said while they continue to admire Mr Musk, he is not being a good neighbour.
“I just have no faith that the leadership there values the environment and these shared resources,” said Chap Ambrose, who leads a group of local residents pushing Mr Musk’s companies to slow down and address concerns about the environmental risks of the development.
“I would say, I’m still a fan [of Elon], but I want him to do better here and be a good neighbour.”
Mr Musk’s building sites in the area have been hit by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) with several violations over poor erosion controls and other matters.
Texas’s transportation department has also reprimanded Boring for building a driveway it said posed traffic-safety concerns.
Bastrop County issued a violation over unauthorised wastewater holding tanks.
“Regarding the Boring Company, we have been regularly hounded by their staff and consultants to expedite and approve permit applications that are incomplete and not in compliance” with regulations, the county’s then-director of engineering and development, Robert Pugh, told a colleague in an email last summer, said the report.
According to Mel Hamner, a Bastrop County commissioner, the growth is “more than this county was ready to handle”.
Another local, Amy Weir, a property owner, said while Mr Musk’s companies have “no doubt done amazing things”, there was no need for them to “reinvent wastewater treatment” when the city was ready to handle it.
Bastrop mayor Connie Schroeder urged Mr Musk and his companies to treat its wastewater at the city’s new plant.
“We all know that’s what’s best for the Colorado,” she said.
According to Rajiv Patel, an environmental consultant sent by Boring, the company aimed to do that in the long run, but said a connection to the city plant didn’t yet exist.
