Local
Eight months after the lagoon outcry, Blue Origin’s wastewater permit is still undecided, and the company wants five more years
State regulators asked Blue Origin in May to justify sending treated wastewater toward the Indian River Lagoon instead of recycling it. The company answered last month by asking for a full five-year renewal while it studies alternatives. DEP has not ruled.
Public comment on Blue Origin’s request to keep discharging industrial wastewater from its Merritt Island rocket factory closed Feb. 6. Eight months later, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection still has not issued a final decision. But the file has not sat still.
In May, DEP asked Blue Origin to explain why it can’t recycle or reuse the water instead. In September, Blue Origin answered: it says a recycling study is underway but needs more time, and it asked DEP to renew the permit for the full five-year term in the meantime. The next move is DEP’s.
What the permit covers
The permit, DEP file FL0A00007-002-IW7A, covers the wastewater system at Blue Origin’s OLS Manufacturing Complex at 8082 Space Commerce Way, near the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Blue Origin applied on Jan. 16, 2025, to renew a permit it has operated under since 2020.
DEP’s October 2025 draft permit describes a 0.49 million-gallon-a-day industrial wastewater facility discharging up to 467,000 gallons a day of process wastewater and 15,000 gallons a day of non-process wastewater into a large onsite stormwater pond, “then to the Indian River.” DEP says the water starts as City of Cocoa drinking water and “does not come into contact with rocket fuel or other hazardous substances and is not discharged directly to the Indian River Lagoon.” The pond “under certain conditions may discharge to an existing drainage system that ultimately connects to the Indian River Lagoon.” Florida Today described that path as a 3-mile ditch system along Ransom Road.
The maximum is a ceiling, not a typical day. DEP’s meeting page lists a maximum of 490,000 gallons a day. In January, Blue Origin asked to remove a discharge point tied to air-conditioning cooling towers, cutting its requested maximum to 467,000 gallons, Florida Today reported. The facility’s flow averages about 40,000 gallons a day over a year, less than 10% of the maximum.
A record of violations
After an April 9, 2025, inspection, DEP sent Blue Origin a warning letter saying the facility:
failed to collect samples in the location the permit requires
failed to perform and document required monthly facility inspections
failed to meet minimum pH limits in three non-consecutive months
Blue Origin settled the case under a December 2025 consent order and paid $4,950 in penalties plus $500 in DEP costs. DEP closed the case Jan. 16, 2026, saying all provisions had been satisfactorily fulfilled.
Brevard asked for a hearing
On Dec. 2, 2025, the Brevard County Commission authorized its Natural Resources Management Department to submit written comments and request a public meeting on the draft permit. DEP held a three-hour open house on Jan. 30 in west Cocoa.
What DEP asked, and what Blue Origin said
On May 12, DEP’s Central District permitting office sent Blue Origin a follow-up request based on the public comments. It asked the company to explain why land application or recycling and reuse of the water “is not economically and technologically reasonable”; to provide more data on discharge rates, volumes and the capacity of the receiving water, including cumulative impacts; and to submit standalone sampling results from the final effluent stream.
Blue Origin responded Sept. 25. It said its earlier reviews found onsite alternatives “not economically reasonable given the benign nature of the discharge” and ruled out land application because of land constraints. In light of public concerns, it said, an updated evaluation of on-site reuse and recycling “is ongoing but requires additional time to complete.” Rather than operate under an “administratively continued permit,” it asked DEP to renew the permit for the five-year cycle while it develops alternatives, and committed to show DEP progress “toward transitioning away from surface water discharge.”
The company also argued the discharge is small relative to the drainage system. Even if the full permitted annual maximum of 3.65 million gallons reached a downstream NASA pump station, it said, that would be about 0.65% of the station’s annual flood-control discharges. That annual figure works out to about 10,000 gallons a day, well below the roughly 40,000-gallon daily average flow reported at the January open house; the letter does not explain the difference.
What hasn’t happened
DEP’s draft notice said the agency “intends to issue the permit with the attached conditions unless as a result of public comment appropriate changes are made,” and warned that because of significant public comment its final action “may be different from the position taken by it in this draft permit.” As of Oct. 13, DEP’s public document system shows no notice of intent, final permit or denial for the renewal, and no record of DEP’s reaction to Blue Origin’s September response.
The full application file is public. It can be searched in DEP’s online OCULUS document system under facility ID FL0A00007, or inspected at DEP’s Central District Office, 3319 Maguire Blvd., Suite 232, Orlando, (407) 897-4100.
321 Daily will update this story when DEP acts on the permit.