Government

The Federal Aviation Administration Just Greenlit Elon Musk's Rocket Habit Next To A Nature Preserve. Understandably, Not Everyone Is Cool With That.

It's like putting a gas station next to a thing-that-really-shouldn't-be-near-gas sanctuary.

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It’s not every day that the Federal Aviation Administration makes ATL headlines. The strangeness of it is evened out by one of the parties involved: Elon Musk. He’s graced our virtual pages several times. Got to give it to him — he keeps finding new ways to get new people to sue him for stuff. This time, the Loraxes want a piece. From Reuters:

Conservation groups sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday, challenging its approval of expanded rocket launch operations by Elon Musk’s SpaceX next to a national wildlife refuge in South Texas without requiring greater environmental study. The federal court lawsuit comes 11 days after SpaceX made good on a newly granted FAA license to send its next-generation Starship rocket on its first test flight, a mission that ended with the vehicle exploding over the Gulf of Mexico after blasting the launchpad to ruins on liftoff.

I understand their expectation of “environmental study” before giving Elon clearance to fuck around and find out. Forgive my French, but Elon Musk has a habitual “je ne sais quoi I’m doing” vibe about him. Reading his feats is like perusing a comedy of errors. Take as a small set of examples his: car safety features, his acting, his tweeting (at least he ultimately won that one), his capacity to not do things that tank the value of his companies… his capacity to not do things that tank the value of his companies, and most topically, his rocket launches:

 

Despite SpaceX’s cheering about the knowledge gained from the above launch, burn, and crash, somebody should pay attention to the environmental consequences of such discovery. Which there were many:

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The shattering force of the launch hurled large chunks of reinforced concrete and metal shrapnel thousands of feet from the launch site, located adjacent to the Lower Rio Grand Valley National Wildlife Refuge near Boca Chica State Park and Beach in Texas.

The blast also ignited a 3.5-acre (1.4-hectare) fire on nearby grounds and sent a cloud of pulverized concrete drifting 6.5 miles to the northwest, raining over surrounding tidal flats and the nearby town of Port Isabel, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Yeah… maybe a wildlife refuge isn’t the best place for the next launch. It is literally one of the places meant to be protected for the sake of maintaining environmental resilience — why the hell would someone want to launch a potentially fire- and concrete-spewing rocket near it? The instances of environmental damage only get more egregious as you look into the history of the refuge:

Monday’s lawsuit said the April 20 incident marked the latest in a series of at least nine explosive mishaps at Boca Chica in recent years that are disrupting a haven for federally protected wildlife and vital habitat for migratory birds.

Intense noise and light pollution, construction and road traffic also have degraded the area, home to two endangered feline predators – the ocelot and jaguarundi- as well as nesting sites for the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, and critical habitat for the piping plover, a threatened shorebird, the plaintiffs say.

The area and its wildlife are also considered sacred to the people of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation, an indigenous group in South Texas.

The disturbances show that the FAA violated federal law by permitting expanded operations at Musk’s Starbase in Boca Chica without mandating the full environmental impact study (EIS)normally required for major projects, the lawsuit asserts.

As the court considers the facts, I hope for the ocelots’ sake that they pay more attention to the hard science than Musk’s rhetoric. He has a way with avoiding criticism by making appeals to aspiration that can hurt the earthbound.

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Environmentalists Sue FAA Over SpaceX Launch License For Texas [Reuters]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

 

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