Environmental groups filed suit Wednesday to block a Trump administration land exchange that would hand SpaceX more than 700 acres within a critical Texas wildlife refuge, arguing the deal ignores mounting ecological damage from the company's rocket operations along the Gulf coast.
The arrangement, approved this month by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, allows SpaceX to trade 683 acres it currently owns for federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refuge, a 103,000-acre expanse spanning four counties along the Texas border. The refuge shelters diverse animal habitats and historical sites.
Maps indicate the land SpaceX would gain sits closer to its launch facility near the US-Mexico border, marking the first government land swap of its kind in the region with the company.
The Center for Biological Diversity and allied groups contend the Fish and Wildlife Service abdicated its duty by facilitating the transfer rather than forcing SpaceX to address environmental harm. "Rather than exercising its enforcement authority to protect the refuge from SpaceX's activities and to require mitigation to address the harm SpaceX has caused, the [Fish and Wildlife Service] seeks to give SpaceX over 700 acres within the refuge," the lawsuit states.
Local SpaceX opponents have long objected to the company's expanding presence in the area, citing lost beach access and dangers posed by rocket explosions. The federal government's own environmental assessment, completed earlier this month, concluded the swap would pose no significant adverse effects and would deliver a "net conservation benefit" with "substantial long-term conservation value and improving landscape-scale habitat connectivity across refuges in south Texas."
The legal challenge arrives as SpaceX prepares for an initial public offering. The company broke ground in Texas over a decade ago and has grown rapidly, with employees voting last year to form their own local government entity called Starbase.
The Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on the litigation. SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.
Author James Rodriguez: "The irony cuts deep: a government agency tasked with protecting wildlife is handing more refuge land to the very company critics say is destroying it."
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