Environmental groups on Wednesday sued in an attempt to stop the Trump administration from giving SpaceX more than 700 acres (280 hectares) of wildlife refuge in Texas, claiming it would worsen ecological risks to a Gulf coast region already transformed by billionaire Elon Musk’s rocket operations.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service this month approved moving forward with the deal with SpaceX, which would surrender 683 acres (276 hectares) the company owns in exchange for federal land in the Lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refuge. The 103,000-acre (41,700-hectare) refuge spans four counties along the Texas border and is home to animal habitats and historical landmarks.
Maps show the land SpaceX would acquire would be closer to the company’s launchpad near the US-Mexico border.
The exchange would be the first time the US government has swapped land in the area with SpaceX, said Laiken Jordahl, a spokesperson with the Center for Biological Diversity, which filed the lawsuit alongside other opponents of the deal.
The lawsuit asks a federal court in Washington to halt the exchange, which has worried SpaceX opponents in the area who have long criticized the company’s expanding footprint over lost access to beaches and concerns over exploding rockets .
“Rather than exercising its enforcement authority to protect the refuge from SpaceX’s activities and to require mitigation to address the harm SpaceX has caused, the [Fish and Wildlife Service] seeks to give SpaceX over 700 acres within the refuge,” states the lawsuit, which was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups.
A spokesperson for the Fish and Wildlife Service said the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation.
Earlier this month, the agency issued a final environmental assessment report that determined the exchange would not significantly affect the area. The report said the federal government believed the acquisition would represent a “net conservation benefit” and provide “substantial long-term conservation value and improving landscape-scale habitat connectivity across refuges in south Texas”.
SpaceX did not return an email seeking comment.
The lawsuit was filed as the company is preparing to go public, putting Musk on the path to become the world’s first trillionaire.
The space exploration company first broke ground in Texas more than a decade ago and has expanded rapidly, so much so that SpaceX employees last year voted to incorporate their own local government called Starbase.