FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 26, 2024
Contact:
Bekah Hinojosa, South Texas Environmental Justice Network, bekahbot@gmail.com or Anothergulfispossible@gmail.com
Community Organizations Reject SpaceX’s Latest Attempt to Takeover Boca Chica Beach with Permit Application by Army Corps of Engineers
Rio Grande Valley organizations submit comments to the Army Corps of Engineers opposing SpaceX’s application to construct an orbital launch pad destroying more wetlands.
Brownsville, TX – Yesterday, the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, represented by Perales, Allmon & Ice, P.C., in partnership with the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas and signed by additional Rio Grande Valley organizations, submitted comments to the Army Corps of Engineers regarding their opposition to SpaceX’s latest application to fill in wetlands on Boca Chica Beach to build an orbital rocket launch pad. The organizations stated their opposition and restated the harms of SpaceX while emphatically requesting an extension to the comment period because the Army Corps notice of the comment period came on the heels of SpaceX’s rocket launch and the news informing the public that the Texas Parks & Wildlife gave away more of Boca Chica Beach. All of these actions occurred within March. Community members submitted over 200 individual comments to the Army Corps rejecting SpaceX’s application.
“SpaceX has not even bothered to provide an explanation as to why it needs to fill the identified wetlands in order to construct a second orbital launchpad. Regardless, SpaceX’s refusal thus far to acquire the requisite permits for its other orbital launchpad and its ongoing noncompliance with environmental laws means the Corps should deny this application outright,” said Attorney Marisa Perales.
Since its beginning in 2019, SpaceX activities have ignited numerous fires and explosions, scattering particulate matter on the low-income Latine community and burning more than seventy acres of the wildlife refuge. The earth-shaking noise, industrial fires, and boulder-sized debris also threaten the area’s ecosystem, which includes species like the piping plover and Kemp’s ridley sea turtles which are already threatened wildlife.
“We won’t allow regulatory and elected officials or elites to give away more of the sacred Boca Chica Beach to a billionaire or destructive industry. We say ‘not another inch’ of the beach to SpaceX!” said Bekah Hinojosa, a co-founder of South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “Our community is constantly being bombarded with news of SpaceX colonizing our low-income Latine & Indigenous community. Just this month, our community faced numerous harms by SpaceX: Texas Parks & Wildlife voted to give away over 40 acres of the sacred Boca Chica Beach to SpaceX, a company which spewed the beach with exhaust from a rocket launch, and forces beach closures from the public for their dangerous operations.”
SpaceX is a sprawling compound on land sacred to the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe. Elon Musk, who fancies himself the founder of a city he calls Starbase, plans to expand further on climate relevant wetlands and colonizing the region with a shopping mall, parking lots, another launch pad, … amidst many shopping mall closures and pre-existing launch sites.
“The Army Corps of Engineers is already failing to stop SpaceX’s current contamination of wetlands, so we demand that the Corps deny SpaceX any permission to destroy more sacred land. Our ancestors lived here and are buried all over these ancient village sites. We demand a stop to the ongoing colonization of these lands. We demand a stop to the ongoing genocide this colonization causes. We demand public hearings. We demand respect for our life ways and our sacred lands. Not another inch for Musk’s vanity project, profiteering, and colonization,” said Juan Mancias, chairman of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas.
Residents are not only being cut off from accessing the beach by the industrial company but are also being actively harmed by its existence, Rio Grande Valley organizations detail in their comment. Musk has invited people from outside the state to move to the area, contributing to the displacement of locals as the influx of wealthy newcomers causes rents to rise. According to residents, Cameron County and other elected officials have facilitated and propagated the corporate takeover of Boca Chica Village and the beach, and have excessively closed HWY 4, the only beach access. SpaceX now owns most of the village, including the tax-payer-funded roads.
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South Texas Environmental Justice Network supports the leadership of frontline BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities. It includes numerous organizations, campaigns, individuals, and the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribal leadership from the South Texas region that challenge the status quo and corporate power to build a future aligned in values, principles, and praxis that centers on the social and environmental health of local Native and BIPOC communities living in reciprocal relationships with our shared natural home. https://www.facebook.com/SOTXEJN
Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas is one of the aboriginal, autochthonous, Indigenous peoples of Texas. The lands in question are within the original boundaries of the traditional homelands of the Carrizo Comecrudo Nation, who were also living in the area now known as the Rio Grande Valley, the mouth of that river, Boca Chica and its surrounding environs with many villages on both sides of the river as recorded by the first Spanish incursions into the area. http://www.carrizocomecrudonation.com/
South Texas Environmental Justice Network is represented by Perales, Allmon & Ice, .P.C.