A coalition of advocacy groups has sued the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over its handling of the environmental assessment of SpaceX’s launch plans in Southeast Texas.
The FAA gave the green light to SpaceX’s Starship launch program last summer, with the stipulation that the company implement a series of measures to mitigate environmental impacts on the surrounding area. But the suit argues that this analysis, and the mitigating measures it requires, are not sufficient to offset or even fully understand the full effects of repeated spacecraft launches.
While the FAA has grounded the spacecraft pending an investigation into the April 20 flight test that ended in a mid-air explosion, the lawsuit asks the court to revoke SpaceX’s launch license to fly the rocket entirely, until a full environmental assessment is complete.
SpaceX’s Starbase, the sprawling launch and rocket development site in southeast Texas, is located near Brazos State Park and Boca Chica Park, both of which are home to delicate birds and other animal groups. The lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, directly adjacent to the launch site, is “one of the most biodiverse areas in North America,” the suit says. These sites are home to federally protected species such as plover, loggerhead sea turtles and ocelots.
The complaint is specifically aimed at testing “anomalies,” such as the spacecraft’s mid-air explosion that concluded the test flight on April 20. This test, which caused severe damage to the rocket’s massive concrete launch pad, resulted in debris that was scattered across hundreds of acres, in the surrounding parkland and beach. The nearby town of Port Isabel was reportedly covered in dirty sand that had been kicked in from the launch.
The group claims that the effects of the anomalies were not adequately considered by the FAA’s analysis. Nor does the FAA require SpaceX to conduct measures, such as static fire tests, to mitigate the risk of an anomaly, they say.
The FAA originally planned to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on the Starship launch program, and later chose to narrow it down to what is called a “Programmatic Environmental Assessment” instead – a type of analysis used to determine whether a full EIS is required. The lawyers argued that the choice to perform a “vastly less comprehensive analysis” was “based on SpaceX’s preference”.
In a decision last summer, the FAA ultimately decided that EIS was not required, as long as SpaceX implemented a series of mitigation measures.
The complaint says the failure to conduct an EIS violates 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 plaintiffs include environmental advocacy groups, the Center for Biological Diversity, American Bird Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, Save RGV and an organization representing the Carrizo/Comecrudo indigenous tribe.
Jared Margolis, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told TechCrunch that under Washington, D.C. circuit law, groups can only file a lawsuit after the FAA has issued a launch license to SpaceX. “In the D.C. area, you can’t file a lawsuit until the final permit has been issued,” he said.
On Twitter Spaces this weekend, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that “to the best of our knowledge there has been no tangible harm to the environment that we are aware of.”
Read the full complaint here.