JAKARTA - SpaceX is being sued by tribes and organizations for restricting access to Boca Chica beach in South Texas amid the company's activities for its Starship program.
The lawsuit was filed by the Sierra Club, the Texas Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe, and the nonprofit Save Rio Grande Valley (RGV) against the Texas General Land Office, Texas land commissioner George P. Bush and Cameron County in Texas in October 2021, for frequently blocking access to beaches. during a pilot of the Starship program.
"Restricting access to public beaches, as the defendants (SpaceX) have done, violates the Texas constitution", the Sierra Club said in a statement.
According to the Sierra Club statement, in 2013 the Texas legislature amended the Texas Open Beaches Act to allow spaceflight operations to close access to beaches.
The Sierra Club alleges the beach was closed for 196 hours (equivalent to about 8 days) in the first three months of 2022, and 2021 a closure of more than 600 hours (roughly 25 days equivalent).
"The defendants (SpaceX) have closed the Boca Chica beach so often that the residents of RGV see their access essentially lost. The Carrizo/Comecrudo Texas tribes, who consider Boca Chica land sacred, have been neglected, while they have lost access to their ancestral heritage", Sierra said. Club.
Both the Sierra Club and the Texas Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe asked the court to overturn the 2013 amendments. However, neither of the allegations has been proven in court, and the statement does not name SpaceX among the entities pursued in the lawsuit.
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Launching Space, Monday, May 30, it is known, that Boca Chica beach is near SpaceX's Starbase facility, where it is building prototype Starship rockets and their giant Super Heavy booster.
There, SpaceX develops, builds, and tests the next generation of Starship vehicles and does other work.
Starbase is currently under Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) environmental review ahead of the company's plans to launch a Super Heavy rocket.
Super Heavy rockets are fully reusable to deliver people and cargo to the Moon, Mars, and other distant destinations.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also said using reusable rockets for Mars settlements and space exploration would reduce operating costs.
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