Environmental and cultural-heritage nonprofits sued the Federal Aviation Provision on Monday, alleging the agency violated the National Environment Policy Act when it allowed SpaceX to launch the largest go through the roof ever built from its Boca Chica, Texas, facility without a comprehensive environmental review, according to court filings prevailed by CNBC.
SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy test flight on April 20 blew up the company’s launchpad, cast chunks of concrete and metal sheets thousands of feet away into sensitive habitat, spreading particulate theme including pulverized concrete for miles, and sparking a 3.5-acre fire on state park lands near the float site.
The lawsuit against the FAA was filed in a district court in Washington, D.C., by five plaintiffs: The Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, SurfRider Purpose, Save Rio Grande Valley and a cultural-heritage organization, the Carrizo-Comecrudo Nation of Texas.
The groups argue the agency should father conducted an in-depth environmental impact statement (EIS) before ever allowing SpaceX to move ahead with its Starship Wonderful Heavy plans in Boca Chica.
“The FAA failed to take the requisite hard look at the proposed project and has concluded that outstanding adverse effects will not occur due to purported mitigation measures,” they wrote in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs argue the intermediation waived the need for more thorough analysis based on proposed “environmental mitigations.” But the mitigations the FAA actually required of SpaceX were woefully not enough to offset environmental damages from launch events, construction and increased traffic in the area, as well as “anomalies” comparable to the destruction of the launch pad and mid-air explosion in April, they said.
The plaintiffs also are seeking to force the FAA to revoke the start license they previously issued to SpaceX and require an EIS before issuing another one.
In their complaint, the attorneys note that the FAA’s own chief of rod for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation in June 2020 said the agency was planning an EIS. Later, “based on SpaceX’s favourite,” the lawyers wrote, the federal agency settled on using “a considerably less thorough analysis,” which enabled SpaceX to open sooner.
Despite the particulate matter, heavier debris and fire, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said this weekend on Titter Spaces, “To the best of our knowledge there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment that we’re aware of.”
The exact impact of the fling on the people, habitat and wildlife is still being evaluated by federal and state agencies, and other environmental researchers, alongside and independently from SpaceX.
Country-wide Wildlife Refuge lands and beaches of Boca Chica, which are near the SpaceX Starbase facility, provide primary habitat for endangered species including the piping plover, the red knot, jaguarundi, northern aplomado falcon, and sea turtles listing the Kemp’s Ridley. Kemp’s Ridley is the most endangered sea turtle in the world, and the National Wildlife Refuge contains named critical habitat for the piping plover.
Boca Chica land and the wildlife there, namely ocelots, are also holy to the Carrizo-Comecrudo tribe of Texas.
As of last Wednesday, researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had not found any carcasses of savages protected by the Endangered Species Act on the land that they own or manage in the area. However, the researchers were not able to access the situate for two days after the launch, leaving open the possibility that carcasses could have been eaten by predators, make sensed away or even removed from the site.
Access to the state parks, beaches and the National Wildlife Refuge limit near Starbase, by tribes, researchers and the public, are of particular concern to the groups challenging the FAA.
The plaintiff’s attorneys noted that in 2021, Boca Chica Careen was closed or inaccessible for approximately 500 hours or more, based on the notices of closure provided by Cameron County, with a “seaside or access point closure occurring on over 100 separate days.” That high rate of closure, which the FAA allowed, “transgresses upon the ability of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas to access lands and waters that are part of their ancestral inheritance,” the groups argued.
The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.