In South Texas, SpaceX looms over iconic beach

When SpaceX first arrived in South Texas, officials gushed about the possibilities. This region is poorer and less white than Texas in general, and many here have long felt neglected by leaders in Austin and Washington, D.C.

Now, one of the richest men had his eyes on South Texas. He wanted to turn Boca Chica into a new Cape Canaveral, a major launch site for his company’s rockets. “This is history in the making,” Francisco Cigarroa, then a chancellor for the University of Texas system, said at a Starbase groundbreaking ceremony in 2014.

In the years since, SpaceX’s presence has continued to grow. In January, county officials approved Starbase as an official place name. In February, SpaceX filed planning documents to build a one million square-foot factory here. When Courthouse News visited Boca Chica in April, rows of housing had been built up the road from the launch site. 

According to local paper The Monitor, SpaceX employs more than 2,000 full-time workers in Boca Chica. Some locals love the prestige and investment the company has brought to the region. “SpaceX choosing to build here, that gave us tremendous validation,” one local economic development official told The Guardian in 2021. “Other businesses finally started looking at us and seeing potential.”

Still, it wasn’t long before complaints about SpaceX began surfacing. For starters, Cameron County now regularly closes access to Highway 4 and parts of the beach.

Then there are the explosions. Last year, one launch burned 3.5 acres of Boca Chica State Park. Musk’s apparently carefree view on such incidents has only fanned the flames. “We’ve got a lot of land with nobody around,” he was quoted as saying in 2018, “so if it blows up, it’s cool.”

SpaceX did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. TPWD initially agreed to give Courthouse News a tour of the lands but abruptly canceled less than 24 hours beforehand, citing the lawsuit. The agency declined a request for an interview and did not respond to an emailed list of questions.

When TPWD first publicly floated the land deal, it almost immediately prompted controversy.

The agency postponed a hearing in January after failing to provide required public notice. Even so, more than 1,000 people wrote comments expressing opposition, compared to fewer than 300 people who supported the plan.

When TPWD commissioners did meet about the proposal in March, they did so in Austin — hundreds of miles away from Boca Chica. The meeting was tense, with some attendees complaining that Spanish-language comments weren’t being accurately translated.

A variety of environmental and civil rights groups came out against the proposal, including Sierra Club and La Unión del Pueblo Entero. In testimony, locals and naturalists highlighted the importance of Boca Chica, including as a stop for migratory birds. 

“If the Texas coastal preserves still mean anything to you at all, you must protect them,” said Mary Branch with Save RGV, a local environmental nonprofit. 

Among the few people who did testify in support of the deal were local officials in Cameron County. In testimony, they said they had initially opposed the plan but changed their minds since it would preserve the 477 acres.

“Our concern was that we had no involvement in what was going on,” Cameron County Commissioner David Garza told TPWD officials. After learning more about the proposal, “I stand before you also in support of the acquisition.” Now, though, those officials seem reluctant to publicly tie themselves to the land trade. Garza declined to comment for this story. Eddie Treviño, the top executive official in Cameron County who also testified in favor, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

At the meeting, TPWD commissioners acknowledged that SpaceX had already alienated some locals. “There's clearly a frustration among the people there about the road closures and all that kind of stuff,” Commissioner Paul Foster said.

They stressed they were only approving negotiations and that the land deal could still fall apart. “Because of the other processes here, this could still be turned down,” Vice-Chairman Oliver Bell explained.

Since TPWD initially acquired land in Boca Chica through a National Coastal Wetlands grant, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will need to sign off on the deal. A FWS spokesperson said TPWD has not yet started an environmental assessment that would be required to finalize the sale.

Then there’s the lawsuit, brought by nonprofits like the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Save RGV and the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. It argues TPWD does not have authority to make the land deal and seeks to have a judge declare it unlawful.

When TPWD applied for a National Coastal Wetlands grant in 1992, the agency said it would “permanently preserve the land to protect it from imminent development threats,” the lawsuit states. Among the exhibits in the case are comments the agency submitted to the FAA in 2021, in which it expressed concerns about “direct loss of habitat” and “unexpected anomalies (e.g., explosions)” due to SpaceX.

“The crux of this lawsuit is about giving away what belonged to the people,” said Marisa Perales, a partner at Austin-based Perales, Allmon & Ice who is representing the plaintiffs. “It’s about the government — not so much SpaceX, but our elected officials and appointed officials — giving away what belonged to the people.”

One plaintiff in the case says it’s had plenty of experience with the government giving its land away. That plaintiff, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, has fought to preserve wildlands in the region for years.

Tribal Chair Juan Mancias says the group has around 1,600 enrolled members. While not a recognized tribe, the groups they claim lineage from undeniably lived in this region. As early as 1940, the Smithsonian Institute had gathered linguistic data on Comecrudo people here. These days, the group prefers to call itself the Esto’k Gna, a phrase that roughly translates to “the human person.”

Mancias traveled to the TPWD meeting in Austin to speak against the land deal. “I don't consent or give consent to any of the swapping or land sale,” he told commissioners in March. “This land is our ancestral land.”

In an interview, Mancias said Boca Chica beach was sacred — the place where the Creator made the first woman. “Then, later, he created the first man with the leftovers," he said.

Mancias seemed largely unbothered by the Esto'k Gna’s unrecognized status. “I would say the white man can’t tell me who I am,” he said. “I know who I am. I know how I grew up. I had a good pair of grandparents who told me who I was.”

The group first asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs for recognition in 1998 — but being unrecognized had its benefits. “Because we’re not recognized,” Mancias added wryly, “we don’t have the opportunity for them to take our federal contracts away. They can’t threaten us like that and tell us to be quiet.”

On a recent afternoon, Basaldú wandered along Boca Chica beach, collecting seashells. He comes out here when he can, sometimes to pray with other Esto’k Gna.

 Growing up in what he calls an assimilated family, Basaldú said reconnecting with his Native heritage was a gradual process. It started as a teenager, with questions like: “Where are we from? What kind of Native are we?” He threw himself into studying Native groups, ultimately earning a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2009. In 2017, he formally enrolled in the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation.

Like Mancias, Basaldú sees the proposed SpaceX land deal as part of a long legacy of land-taking in the area. “White people from another part of the world came over here and projected the fallacy that there was nothing here,” he said. “In their minds, because there was nothing here, they could create whatever they wanted.”

Leaving Boca Chica beach, Basaldú drove past the sites of new LNG terminals — another environmental fight in which the Esto’k Gna are involved. Not long ago, he said, this land had mangroves. “They are continuing to destroy the world, and that’s how you get climate catastrophe,” he added later. “It’s all connected.”

Follow @stephentpaulsen

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