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 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 theTimes 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 Gizmodoreported. "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.
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