A land swap between SpaceX and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the southern tip of Texas has triggered a lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday by several environmental groups opposing the deal.
A final environmental assessment published by USFWS on June 1 found “no significant impact” would occur from the land swap. Under the proposed terms the newly-public rocket company owned by tech mogul Elon Musk would transfer 683 acres of private land to federal ownership. In exchange, SpaceX would receive 715 acres of the publicly-owned Lower Rio Grande Valley and Laguna Atascosa national wildlife refuges.
The private land acquired from SpaceX is a net benefit for the public and wildlife, according to the USFWS:
“The exchange will consolidate fragmented refuge holdings, reduce land use conflicts, and enhance long-term conservation of high-value habitats within the [refuges],” reads the final environmental impact statement. “…The acquired parcels include tidal marsh, saline prairie, thornscrub, coastal flats, wetland complexes, and shoreline habitat within approved refuge acquisition boundaries.”
Environmental groups disagreed with this assessment, filing suit against the USFWS in district court in Washington D.C. Wednesday. That includes the litigious Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, and the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, along with an indigenous nonprofit. The groups allege the USFWS has violated a number of federal laws, including the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, because the swap “will permanently reduce and degrade the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.”
“The wildlife habitat that SpaceX has sought to take ownership of has been degraded by SpaceX’s expanding operations and failed rocket launches,” added the CBD in a press release, which also invoked endangered species like the ocelot.
Conservation and hunting groups have not waded into the debate. The Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR is roughly 103,000 acres, about 40,000 of which are open to the public and 6,000 of which are open to hunting. A smaller portion of the private land that would be acquired from Space X will add acreage that abuts the Laguna Atascosa NWR, which is one of 107 federal parcels identified for hunting expansion by the USFWS last month. The agency has proposed opening migratory bird hunting on the refuge and expanding big game hunting.
The proposed land swap is a net loss of 32 public acres, though land swaps usually do not exchange equal numbers of acreage for practical reasons including property boundaries, continuity, development, and other realities on the landscape. A map that was included in the draft Environmental Assessment indicates the public land marked for divestiture is low to medium habitat quality.
While there’s limited scientific evidence around SpaceX’s current impact on the surrounding refuges in South Texas, local reports have noted debris from failed launches landing up to 6 miles away and ash landing on nearby communities.
Long term studies on rocket launches by NASA and other international space programs like China document acute, if fairly localized, negative impacts on surrounding habitat. Many rocket launch sites, including Cape Canaveral in Florida, are adjacent to wildlife refuges or similarly protected habitat.
“Shuttle cloud and exhaust of the rocket boosters can lead to local vegetation damage and biodiversity loss because of fuel spills, chemical leaks, acidic deposition and extreme noise raised during the processing,” according to that study. “These effects can reach up to [28 miles] from [rocket launch sites], threatening nature conservation efforts within these areas. For example, hydrochloric acid emitted from solid rocket launches leaching into nearby water led to fish kills.”
Related: Here’s Where the Trump Administration Plans to Open Hunting, Fishing Opportunities on Refuge and Park Service Lands
The draft environmental assessment was available for public comment from March 2 to March 31, during which the USFWS received more than 25,000. Most of those comments, according to USFWS, opposed the land swap. It appeared, in part, to dismiss them as form comments that were not unique.
SpaceX has been in talks with the USFWS since 2023 over the current land swap, and has previously been in talks with Texas Parks and Wildlife over a similar land swap that also prompted a lawsuit. SpaceX eventually pulled out of the deal.
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