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McALLEN — Conservation groups are trying to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from exchanging hundreds of acres of land with SpaceX.
This month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife allowed a land swap deal with SpaceX to move forward that would give SpaceX 715 acres of land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in exchange for 683 acres of private land that is adjacent to another refuge, the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.
The conservation groups suing include the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, and the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. They are joined by the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, a nonprofit indigenous group that considers the land that SpaceX is now occupying and seeks to develop as sacred. However, the tribe is not officially recognized by the federal government.
The groups said they hope to preserve the land to protect the diverse wildlife there, including the endangered ocelot. They argue SpaceX’s presence in the area has also begun degrading the land, particularly through rocket test launches that send debris onto refuge lands.
SpaceX did not immediately respond to questions about the land exchange.
“Our protected public lands are being gifted for the benefit of the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge was built by decades of conservation work and funded by millions of taxpayer dollars to protect our vulnerable wildlife like ocelots and piping plovers.”
Jordahl added: “We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands just to give Elon Musk another payday.”
In the lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, the groups argued that the land swap is inconsistent with the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act, a law that lays out the mission and management of refuge lands, and that by approving the exchange, the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the National Historic Preservation Act, a statute enacted to protect historical sites from development.
They also argued that the environmental analysis of the land exchange did not meet the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, and accused the agency of working with SpaceX to come up with “unfounded” scores to rate the land they would be giving up against the land the agency would be obtaining.
As part of an environmental assessment published in May, the agency evaluated habitat quality using “Biological Importance Scores.” A score was assigned to each parcel of land based on three equally weighted criteria: habitat quality, refuge connectivity, and critical habitat. The refuge land proposed to be given to SpaceX scored lower than the land the Fish and Wildlife Service would obtain.
Additionally, the conservation groups argued that the agency’s analysis of the swap didn’t meet the requirement of the National Environmental Policy Act, alleging that they did not consider reasonable alternatives and did not take a hard look at the impacts the deal would have due to SpaceX’s expansion.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, declined to comment on active or pending litigation.
Environmental assessment
In June, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the land exchange would not have significant adverse effects on public health or safety, historic or cultural resources, tribal sacred sites for federally recognized Tribes, ecologically critical areas, wetlands or floodplains, or on designated wilderness or research and natural areas.
The agency began holding talks with SpaceX over a potential land exchange in 2023. The goal, the agency said in their May environmental assessment, was to reduce the fragmented ownership of the land and consolidate them.
The assessment looked at whether the land exchange furthered the purpose of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, whether it fulfills the conservation mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System, and whether it provides a net conservation benefit to the refuge.
Most of the land being offered up by the agency was acquired in the 1990s through condemnation for the protection of natural resources located on them, including endangered species habitat, coastal wetlands and barrier islands.
Industrial development
Since then, the surrounding area has experienced significant industrialization and development, especially because of SpaceX’s presence and expansion there. The industrial activity and the fragmented pattern of private land ownership led to increased disturbance from noise and lights and elevated levels of habitat fragmentation. The agency said those factors diminished the value of the land for purposes of conservation.
“The resulting changes in land use and landscape context have impacted the ability of these parcels to function as effective components of the regional conservation network,” the agency said.
Those parcels of land are also fragmented by private land owned by SpaceX, including the SpaceX Massey Test Site used for tests of space launch vehicles and land being developed by SpaceX for residential, commercial and possibly other uses.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it expects SpaceX will use the acquired land for residential, commercial, or institutional development in addition to infrastructure or other manufacturing activities.
The parcels that SpaceX would be giving the agency in return are adjacent to the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.
One set of land parcels is known informally as “Las Palomas” and is surrounded by land belonging to the Lower Rio Grande Valley refuge. Another set of parcels lies between the communities of Laguna Heights and Laguna Vista. That set of land is contiguous with a portion of the Laguna Atascosa refuge.
The conservation groups pointed out that the refuge land that would be handed over to SpaceX include portions of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark, the site of the last Civil War battle, and warned that SpaceX could choose not to preserve its historic values.
However, the Fish and Wildlife Service said it signed a contract, known as a programmatic agreement, with SpaceX, the Texas Historic Commission and the National Park Service on May 11. A programmatic agreement allows federal agencies to continue managing historic properties.
In 2024, SpaceX was in talks with Texas Parks and Wildlife on a different land swap deal that would have given SpaceX 43 acres from Boca Chica State Park.
In exchange, SpaceX would have transferred 477 acres near the Laguna Atascosa refuge. The conservation groups sued to stop that land deal as well before SpaceX pulled out of the deal.
Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.
