{"id":469553,"date":"2026-10-18T09:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/469553\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T09:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:54:13","slug":"how-elon-muskss-spacex-transformed-brownsville-texas-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/469553\/","title":{"rendered":"How Elon Musks\u2019s SpaceX transformed Brownsville, Texas | Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

BROWNSVILLE, Texas \u2014 Elon Musk hadn\u2019t yet flown a single person to space when he approached local leaders here with a plan 15 years ago: He wanted to save humanity by colonizing Mars, and to get there he proposed building a giant rocket facility<\/a> in this impoverished town.<\/p>\n

Gilberto Salinas, a local economic development official, said he laughed it off initially: \u201cThis is just crazy, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Salinas flew to Hawthorne, California, to see SpaceX\u2019s early rocket factory and to \u201ckick the tires\u201d on the company, as he put it, because it was then still essentially a startup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were, in fact, building rockets,\u201d Salinas said. \u201cBut they were a bunch of kids that were in their late 20s, early 30s. To me they looked like skateboarders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.70.JPG\"<\/p>\n

A pedestrian walks past an Elon Musk mural that reads \u201cBOCA CHICA TO MARS\u201d in Brownsville, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

Still, Salinas wondered: What if this could be the project to revive his downtrodden hometown on the Mexican border? \u201cWe could potentially become the next space city,\u201d Salinas remembers thinking. \u201cFast forward to today and we are that.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX has dramatically transformed the Brownsville region in the last 15 years \u2014 for better or worse, depending on who you ask. Here, the company is building the world\u2019s largest and most powerful rocket in a newly formed company town called Starbase, just east of Brownsville on Boca Chica Beach.<\/p>\n

Since SpaceX arrived in 2014, the region has added about 25,000 jobs. The company and local officials boast that it has injected $13 billion into the South Texas economy in 2023 and 2024. And Brownsville, which not long ago was the poorest community in the U.S., now has new, upscale restaurants and coffee shops downtown. An estimated 20,000 spaceflight tourists<\/a> flock to town for every launch of the company\u2019s 40-story prototype rocket, dubbed Starship.<\/p>\n

Still, on a regular basis, protesters take to the streets with signs labeled \u201c\u00a1Fuera SpaceX!\u201d \u2014 \u201cSpaceX leave!\u201d in Spanish.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because residents say their homes shake during launches, and some allege in class-action litigation that their foundations have been damaged by sonic booms. The launch site, tucked between wildlife sanctuaries, has also polluted wetlands, according to regulators, and the spaceport\u2019s impact on migratory birds relying on the habitat is not fully understood.<\/p>\n

\"101826<\/p>\n

As Musk and SpaceX get ready to bring rocket launches to Louisiana\u2019s Vermilion Parish<\/a> with a planned $100 billion spaceport, the warp-speed transformation of Brownsville may offer a view of what\u2019s to come.<\/p>\n

A business boom<\/p>\n

In Brownsville, population 185,000, downtown murals funded by the Musk Foundation depict Starship barreling toward the moon and Mars. At bars in town, beer from Starbase Brewing, an Austin-based brewery that aims to be the first to brew beer on the red planet, is served in pint glasses that read \u201cBeer today, Mars tomorrow.\u201d The local boat tour companies on South Padre Island, which traditionally ferried tourists to spot dolphins, have added tours focused on watching SpaceX rockets launch.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.74.JPG\"<\/p>\n

A mural of an astronaut photographed in Brownsville, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

Among local leaders, there\u2019s an optimism about Brownsville\u2019s future that hasn\u2019t been felt in years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I go talk to the kids at schools, they tell me they want to work at SpaceX, they want to be astronauts, or they want to be engineers. And they want to work here,\u201d said Eddie Trevi\u00f1o, the Cameron County Judge, a role comparable to that of a Louisiana parish president.<\/p>\n

Once the nation\u2019s leading cotton exporter, Brownsville was an agricultural community in the first half of the 20th century known for ranching and a shrimp fleet largely manned by Cajuns.<\/p>\n

Then, in the 1980s, oil prices tumbled and led to a collapse in the value of the Mexican peso. Because Brownsville\u2019s economy was so intertwined with Matamoros, Mexico, just across the border, it took a hit. Unemployment surged.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.65.JPG\"<\/p>\n

A mural with a rocket photographed in Brownsville, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

For decades, Brownsville was in dire need of an economic boost.<\/p>\n

After those early meetings between Musk and Salinas in 2011, the local and state government put together a $50 million incentive package to bring SpaceX in, according to Salinas, now the president and CEO of the Greater Brownsville EDC.<\/p>\n

That package was much smaller than the $27.5 billion in incentives that Louisiana just offered the company. \u201cWe got SpaceX here for pretty cheap back then,\u201d Salinas said.<\/p>\n

Brownsville officials and residents said the company\u2019s presence has paved the way for big-ticket industrial projects bringing jobs and money to an area that was, in Salinas\u2019 words, a \u201csleepy border town.\u201d SpaceX says it has created more than 4,300 well-paid jobs, with plans to expand.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.59.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Gilberto Salinas, president and CEO of the Greater Brownsville EDC, poses in Brownsville, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. Salinas was among the first in Brownsville to meet with Elon Musk, and helped bring SpaceX to South Texas. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

New business has flocked to surrounding Cameron County, too, which local officials attribute to SpaceX’s presence. A liquefied natural gas terminal is slated to open at the Port of Brownsville. A data center broke ground in nearby Harlingen. And the first new oil refinery to open in the U.S. in nearly 50 years is planned for the county.<\/p>\n

Vice President JD Vance was here last month for a groundbreaking ceremony for a company that will build AI-powered battleships and promises to bring 10,000 jobs to the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwenty years ago, if we could get a development or a project of $30 million, that was just unbelievable. Now all of our projects are in the billions,\u201d Trevi\u00f1o said. \u201cWe’re spoiled. And it’s led to a lot of other issues. Our infrastructure needs to catch up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.68.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevi\u00f1o sits in his office in Brownsville, Texas, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

As the region has industrialized, residents see their home values increasing and feel the uptick in economic activity. \u201cThere’s just a certain vibe in town now that did not exist before,\u201d Salinas said.<\/p>\n

Still, Brownsville remains largely poor. The city no longer has the highest poverty rate in the U.S., as it did in 2013, according to Census data. But roughly a quarter of people in the Brownsville region still live below the poverty line, more than double the national average of about 1 in 10. Down the street from Brownsville\u2019s new French restaurant, many buildings remain boarded up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s bringing money into the place,\u201d said Joseph Mendez, 42, who cooks at The Library, a Brownsville bar. \u201cMe, personally, I\u2019ve seen a lot of people come in from out of town. There\u2019s a lot of jobs, a lot of good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.51.JPG\"<\/p>\n

A sign points to Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

SpaceX is eyeing big expansion there, too, well beyond what local officials originally bargained for. The Federal Aviation Administration this week posted a notice that it will look into the environmental impact of SpaceX launching Starship, a rocket nearly as tall as the Louisiana State Capitol building, up to 456 times a year from its Texas launch site. That would mean up to 912 landings, since both stages of the rocket would touch down. Every launch will feature three explosive, window-rattling blasts.<\/p>\n

So far, the company has launched that rocket, which is still a prototype, on just 14 test launches. In Louisiana, Musk has said he hopes to launch it 30 times a day, or more than 10,000 times a year.<\/p>\n

Growing pains<\/p>\n

From the porch of his ranch home, 15 miles from SpaceX\u2019s launchpad, Rene Medrano can feel the sonic booms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the rocket takes off from over there,\u201d he said, gesturing toward Boca Chica Beach, \u201cwe feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medrano, 66, and his wife, Ida, 65, have lived here for 40 years. They keep chickens and goats in their backyard. They\u2019re in the country, the kind of place you\u2019d choose to build a life if you valued quiet and nights with dark skies.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.03.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Rene and Ida Medrano pose on their property in Brownsville, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. The Medranos live 15 miles from the Starbase launch site. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not quiet anymore,\u201d said Rene Medrano, taking a sip of his beer. \u201cYou would come out here and you\u2019d be silent and you could see the stars. Now you see glows of light from all the construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

They said they\u2019ve had items fall off their shelves when the rockets launch. Their dog, Miller, \u201cturns herself into a little ball\u201d and hides under a chair trembling, Ida Medrano said. Traffic snakes through their small community. The road to Boca Chica Beach, previously used only by beachgoers, now shuttles and carries the Starship rocket to the launchpad.<\/p>\n

Locals now have less access to Boca Chica Beach, a place that Brownsville residents value.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was known as the \u2018poor man\u2019s beach,\u2019\u201d Medrano said. \u201cFamilies would go. They would barbecue; they would fish; they would enjoy the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.77.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Starbase launchpads seen in the distance from the top of the lighthouse in Port Isabel, Texas, about six miles from the launch site. Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

The Times-Picayune<\/p>\n

Salinas brushed off the concerns about beach access. \u201cIt was a very dirty beach,\u201d Salinas said. \u201cI never knew people cared so much about the beach until we started working on this project. Suddenly now, they\u2019re very worried about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, the city of Starbase decides if the beach is open or closed, thanks to a Texas law passed last year. Trevi\u00f1o, the county judge, said that he opposed the law \u2014 he previously had the authority to close the road and he would occasionally veto SpaceX\u2019s requests to do so.<\/p>\n

Trevi\u00f1o said he took heat from his constituents for allowing SpaceX to incorporate as its own municipality.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.14.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Construction continues on a SpaceX production facility in Starbase, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

Starbase, Texas, became a city unto itself last year, after 212 residents there \u2014 mostly SpaceX workers \u2014 voted to do so. It is largely closed off to anyone who is not a SpaceX employee. The city\u2019s mayor is a SpaceX vice president, Bobby Peden, who ran for his position unopposed and declined an interview request for this story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was blamed for giving away Boca Chica Beach,\u201d Trevi\u00f1o said. \u201cBut people have to understand that I don\u2019t have the authority to say, well, you know what? I don\u2019t want your business. \u2026 If you meet your requirements and ask for an election, I\u2019m duty-bound.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trevi\u00f1o lost his bid for reelection earlier this year and is serving out the end of his term.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.19.JPG\"<\/p>\n

The Starship rocket is prepared for a launch from Starbase, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

The Times-Picayune<\/p>\n

Still, he said, SpaceX has been a good partner, for the most part.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of our dealings with SpaceX have been more positive than negative,\u201d he said. \u201cI understand the concern from the environmental standpoint. We probably won’t know until down the road whether or not this was worse than we anticipated or whether all the precautions are working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Water ‘so clean you could drink it’<\/p>\n

Two hours after SpaceX launched its 14th Starship test flight in late September, shorebirds \u2014 black-necked stilts and sandpipers \u2014 waded in water that had flowed off the launchpad. At liftoff, a \u201cdeluge\u201d system blasts hundreds of thousands of gallons of water beneath the rocket, soaking up some of the blast\u2019s heat and noise.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.53.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Water puddles below the launch site after a SpaceX rocket is launched in Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

Much of that water instantly turns to steam. Some sprays into the surrounding area. It may contain heavy metals, like mercury, according to environmentalists and regulators.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpaceX says it\u2019s so clean you could drink it,\u201d said Justin LeClaire, an avian conservation biologist. LeClaire doubts that. Federal and state regulators cited the company in 2024 for discharging that water into surrounding wetlands without a permit.<\/p>\n

But the site remains a birdwatcher\u2019s paradise. On a single winter day on Boca Chica Beach, in the shadow of the launch towers, LeClaire counted 1,000 reddish egrets, a record-high number for the rare North American bird. He and his group, the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, have documented SpaceX\u2019s ecological impact.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.55.JPG\"<\/p>\n

A sandpiper walks in the water at the base of the launch pad after a SpaceX rocket launch in Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, the launchpad lured in shorebirds at first, LeClaire said. When SpaceX blew up its launchpad in 2023, it sprayed hunks of concrete and smaller pebbles over a sandy stretch near the pad. Plovers and terns like a beach with small rocks, according to LeClaire; they moved in and nested there. But the next launches shot debris at the nests, decimating many of them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also not entirely clear what kinds of impacts the launches have on birds\u2019 bodies. Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX\u2019s president, said during a speech announcing the company\u2019s Louisiana spaceport that birds return to their habitat after each launch. Some clearly do. But no one has yet fully taken stock of the impact of a sonic boom on, for instance, a snowy plover. The fast-flying, hollow-boned creature weighs as much as a small lemon and its populations are declining.<\/p>\n

As the frequency of launches increases to a pace that humanity has not previously attempted, the environmental impacts will only increase. Rocket launches aside, LeClaire said, the sheer scale of the development at Starbase, in a crucial migratory bird habitat, hasn\u2019t done the birds and other wildlife any favors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re only looking at the impacts of launch every few months,\u201d LeClaire said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know how it will be if it\u2019s every day, or multiple times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.83.JPG\"<\/p>\n

A sign in the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area stands near the rocket launchpads in Starbase, Texas, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what\u2019s planned now, in both Texas and Louisiana. To the richest man in the world and his followers, cracking a few bird eggs may be a small price to pay to achieve their interplanetary ambitions. And if his plans come to fruition, it appears that Musk thinks that SpaceX will ultimately save the birds \u2014 and all life on Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtremely severe extinction events happen every 100M years or so and just switching to sustainable energy will not be enough to stop them,\u201d Musk posted recently on X, the social media platform he owns. \u201cSpace satellites to control temperature and massive geo-engineering will be needed or it will be game over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea: to blot out some small percentage of the sun\u2019s rays with a swarm of what Musk has described as \u201csentient satellites\u201d to scale back global warming.<\/p>\n

\"NO.spacextexas.adv.80.JPG\"<\/p>\n

Justin LeClaire, avian conservation biologist with the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, walks the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area near the SpaceX launch pads in Starbase, Texas, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026. STAFF PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER<\/p>\n

Sophia Germer<\/p>\n

While Musk thinks his rockets can save the planet, Bekah Hinojosa, a Brownsville resident and a founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, thinks the city\u2019s ambitions would be better directed at problems closer to home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do need jobs,\u201d Hinojosa said. \u201cBut we need jobs that don’t shake and crack people’s homes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROWNSVILLE, Texas \u2014 Elon Musk hadn\u2019t yet flown a single person to space when he approached local leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1475,159599,8892,8393,159601,32566,159600,103933,1474,2223,32265,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-469553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-brownsville","tag-economic-transformation","tag-elon-musk","tag-environmental-justice","tag-fej","tag-hardwall","tag-mars-colonization","tag-rocket-launches","tag-south-texas","tag-spacex","tag-starbase","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}