A coalition of advocacy groups has filed a lawsuit against the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over its handling of the environmental assessment of SpaceX’s southeast Texas launch plans.
The FAA gave the green light to SpaceX’s Starship launch program last summer, on the condition that the company carry out a series of measures to mitigate environmental impacts in the surrounding area. But the lawsuit says that this analysis and the mitigation measures it requires are not enough to offset or even fully understand the full effects of repeated Starship launches.
While the FAA has grounded Starship pending an investigation into the April 20 flight test that ended in a midair explosion, the lawsuit asks the court to rescind SpaceX’s launch license to fly. the rocket completely, until a full environmental assessment is completed.
SpaceX’s Starbase, its sprawling rocket development and launch site in southeast Texas, is near Brazos Island State Park and Boca Chica State Park, both of which are home to sensitive populations of birds and other animals. The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which is located directly adjacent to the launch site, is “one of the most biologically diverse regions in North America,” the lawsuit says. These sites are home to federally protected species such as the piping plover, loggerhead turtle, and ocelot.
The complaint is aimed in particular at proving “anomalies”, such as the Starship midair explosion that concluded the test flight on April 20. That test, which caused significant damage to the rocket’s massive concrete launch pad, generated debris that was scattered across hundreds of acres, in surrounding parks and on the beach. The nearby city of Port Isabel was reportedly covered in dirty sand that was blown up from the launch.
The effects of the anomalies were not sufficiently considered by the FAA’s analysis, the group alleges. The FAA also does not require SpaceX to take measures, such as static fire tests, to mitigate the risks of an anomaly occurring, they say.
The FAA originally planned to conduct an environmental impact statement (EIS) on the Starship launch program, later opting to reduce it to what is called a “Programmatic Environmental Assessment,” a type of analysis used to determine whether a full EIS it is required. The choice to perform “a considerably less thorough analysis” instead was “based on SpaceX’s preference,” the lawyers argued.
In a decision issued last summerthe FAA ultimately determined that an EIS was not required, provided SpaceX implemented a number of mitigation measures.
Failure to conduct an EIS is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, a key piece of federal legislation that requires agencies to review environmental impacts before issuing permits and other major actions, the complaint says.
The plaintiffs include environmental advocacy groups Center for Biological Diversity, American Bird Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, Save RGV and an organization representing the Carrizo/Comecrudo Indian tribe.
Jared Margolis, lead attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, told TechCrunch that under Washington, D.C. circuit law, groups couldn’t file the lawsuit until after the FAA issued the launch license to SpaceX. “In the DC district, you can’t sue until the final permit is issued,” he said.
On Twitter Spaces this weekend, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that “to the best of our knowledge, there has been no significant damage to the environment that we are aware of.”
—————————————————-
Source link