["While we are looking to the stars, we should not readily
sacrifice communities, habitat, and species," said a Center for
Biological Diversity senior attorney. ]
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SPACEX EXPLOSION SPARKS ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS AFTER COATING TEXAS
COMMUNITY IN ASH  
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Olivia Rosane
April 25, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ "While we are looking to the stars, we should not readily sacrifice
communities, habitat, and species," said a Center for Biological
Diversity senior attorney. _

A descending rocket explodes SpaceX's Starship spacecraft and Super
Heavy rocket explodes after launch from Starbase on April 20, 2023.,
Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Images

 

Experts and community members say that particulates from the Thursday
explosion of Elon Musk's Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket
rocket spread much farther than SpaceX predicted, raising concerns
about the impact on human health and endangered species.

Within minutes of the explosion, residents of Port Isabel, Texas
reported that wet, sandy material was falling from the sky, despite
the fact that they were around six miles from the Boca Chica launch
site.

"What kind of danger did Cameron County bring to our community when
SpaceX was welcomed here?" Elma Arredondo, a retired school teacher
who used to work at Port Isabel's Garriga Elementary, asked
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in an interview with _Texas Public Radio_.

Thursday's launch was the first test for Starship, the largest rocket
ever built. The rocket lifted off successfully at 8:33 am CT and shot
about 39 kilometers into the air before multiple engines failed and
the rocket lost altitude as it started to wobble, SpaceX explained
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This triggered the decision to explode both the ship and its booster.

"With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we
learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today
that will help us improve on future flights of Starship," SpaceX wrote
on its website.

_Interesting Engineering_said
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SpaceX's attitude was in keeping with its "fail fast, learn fast"
approach, but the company's leadership, including CEO Elon Musk,
aren't the ones who have to live with the consequences of those
failures. That would be the residents of Port Isabel, who have to deal
with the potential health impacts of Thursday's ash rain, or the
endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles currently nesting on Boca Chica's
beaches.

"We are not against space exploration or this company," Center for
Biological Diversity senior attorney Jared Margolis told
[[link removed]]_CNBC_
Monday. "But while we are looking to the stars, we should not readily
sacrifice communities, habitat, and species."

Instead, Port Isabel spokeperson Valerie Bates told
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New York Times_ that almost the entire town "ended up with a covering
of a rather thick, granular, sand grain that just landed on
everything."

 

[A dust-spattered car]

Particulates from the Starship explosion coat a car in Port
Isabel.(Photo: Yvette Espinoza Pennington/SpaceX Boca Chica
Group/Facebook)

Bates said that the debris posed no "immediate concern for people's
health," and environmental compliance and risk expert Eric Roesch, who
warned [[link removed]]
on his blog _ESG Hound_ that the launch was likely to have a bigger
impact than SpaceX attested, said it was impossible to say without a
chemical analysis. However, Roesch also told _CNBC_ that particulate
matter in general can cause lung and breathing problems.

There was physical damage as well. Vibrations broke a window at a Port
Isabel gym and, closer to the site, larger pieces of debris hit a car.

"Concrete shot out into the ocean, and risked hitting the fuel storage
tanks which are these silos adjacent to the launch pad," Sierra Club
Lone Star chapter director Dave Cortez told _CNBC_.

Roesch said all the flying particulates and concrete came from a large
crater that formed at the launch site because SpaceX didn't install a
trench or water system to redirect and quench fire.

"He just wanted to get this thing up in the air," Port Isabel resident
Sharon Almaguer told the_Times _of Musk. "Everybody else sort of be
damned."

That everybody else may include the turtles and other animals that
live near Boca Chica.

"SpaceX's Boca Chica facility sits amid one of the most unique natural
habitats in the northern hemisphere," Roesch noted in an April 16 blog
post. "The area is home to countless endangered species and provides a
wintering home to the piping plover and red knot."

Roesch said that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted the
launch permission based on noise, heat plume and, other calculations
from 2019, when Starship was 20% smaller.

"The resulting damage to the community and the environment predicted
are certainly understated, inadequate, and inaccurate," he said days
before the launch.

In the face of the explosion, the FAA told _CNBC_ that it had grounded
further launches for a "mishap investigation," which is standard
operating procedure. Future Starships can launch again once SpaceX has
undertaken additional "environmental mitigations," FAA said. However,
Margolis thought the hurdle would be too easily cleared to protect
human and animal well-being.

This isn't the first time a Musk company has clashed with Texas
communities over environmental impacts. At a public hearing in March,
community members of Bastrop, Texas, protested his Boring Company's
plans to dump self-treated wastewater into the nearby Colorado River
instead of using the city system. The company is seeking a permit to
do this, but it has previously come under fire for moving forward
without construction and air quality permits, and residents are
frustrated with how the billionaire can use money to have his way in
their city.

"The owner of these companies spent $44 billion on Twitter, and it had
no impact on his ability to continue to build these businesses,"
Bastrop property owner Amy Weir said at the meeting, as
_Gizmodo_reported
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"There is no way for the state to enforce its laws or protect the
people and businesses downstream, should there be an issue with
discharge from this facility."

Olivia Rosane is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

 

 

* Elon Musk; Starship Failure; SpaceX Pollution; Boca Chica;
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