Brownsville agrees to SpaceX deal, giving the company 445 acres in exchange for water and money
For scale, note the tiny people watching on
shore. Click for source.
The Brownsville city council yesterday unanimously agreed to a SpaceX offer to pay the city $220 million plus provide it water plus wastewater removal, in exchange for giving the company 445 acres where it could establish its own port for its Starship barges, the first of which is shown on the right as it arrived in Texas in June.
The funding will be used for two projects, including a wastewater reclamation project that will provide an additional 8 million gallons per day; and an expansion of a water plant owned by the Southmost Regional Water Authority in Brownsville which is expected to increase water supply by approximately 10 million gallons per day. The city currently uses about 21 million gallons per day — 70% of that comes from the Rio Grande while the rest is produced through their groundwater water desalination plant. “This investment will allow us to reduce or completely eliminate our reliance on the Rio Grande River,” Brownsville Mayor John Cowen Jr. told the Tribune on Monday. “So if the Rio Grande River goes dry for any reason, we are assured water sustainability for generations to come.”
… The deannexed land, tucked between the city’s landfill and other industrial activity, is strategic for SpaceX, giving the company access to the Brownsville ship channel. The majority of the property is zoned for heavy industrial use while the rest is zoned for agriculture, Cowen said. By deannexing the land, the city will no longer have the authority to zone the property for specific uses. “I believe that they will be producing their Starship rockets at Starbase, and then transporting them through this property to be transported, via barge, to Louisiana,” Cowen said.
This deal continues SpaceX’s recent policy in all its recent land purchases to free itself as much as it can from government interference. And in this case, SpaceX played hardball, telling the council if they didn’t accept that offer at yesterday’s council meeting, the company would withdraw the offer and look for other options. Not surprisingly, the council agreed, though as usual there were some who protested.
SpaceX now has real estate it needs to built a facility for shipping the Starships and Superheavys it builds in Boca Chica to both Florida and Louisiana.
Hat tip Robert Pratt of Pratt on Texas.
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Still seems like a good deal for the City of Brownsville, though.
If I gave a different impression I am sorry. This is definitely a good deal for the city, and its residents.
To paraphrase Lazarus Long “I have no plans on dying.”
That said, I realize it happens to everybody. It appears that many times each week SpaceX / Musk makes every day more interesting.
PS – I wonder if, by the time another Leftist Administration occupies the White House, will SpaceX / Musk have so much infrastructure in place, the Left will think twice about destroying it.
Are you kidding?
MSFC has built not one but two Moon Rockets and has faced more assassination attempts than President Trump….and that just coming from Marshall haters *here* ;)
Greens are ten times as rabid…forget Starship–that bunch doesn’t even want us to have fireworks, for Pete’s sake.
MSFC has been protected by a very, very faithful and usually powerful Alabama congressional delegation over the past five decades!
Of course, while the faithfulness is likely to endure, there is no guarantee about its power. As is, the present delegation is not nearly as influential as it was a decade ago, even with Republican controlled government. No one has anything like Shelby’s influence.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk is literally completing no less than five launch pads for Starship, with another 10 (!) in advanced planning.
What’s fifteen launch pads and the prospect of thousands of reusable launches against a handful of expendable rockets lofted once every few years?
Sorry for the sarcasm, Jeff, but you’re going to have to present a different argument to get support.
Jeff Wright,
“MSFC has built not one but two Moon Rockets and has faced more assassination attempts than President Trump….and that just coming from Marshall haters *here* ;)”
I wouldn’t brag too hard. The first Moon Rocket wasn’t economical enough to survive past its intended mission, and even some of those flights were cancelled. NASA and space advocates expected the Saturn V to continue with the Apollo Applications Program, but it was just too expensive. It was designed to put man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth again. It achieved its goal, but unfortunately it was not economical enough for a budget-conscious Congress to continue funding it.
The second Moon Rocket can’t even get mankind to the Moon but requires a lander that must be launched on a separate rocket. None of the lessons learned from Apollo or the Space Shuttle were applied to SLS. SLS was designed with no goal in mind, so I suppose we can say that it, too, has achieved its goal. You call SLS a Moon Rocket, but that was not its mission or intention; it was only intended to carry a specific mass to low Earth orbit, a mass too small to get men onto the Moon.
It would have been better if Marshall had made Moon Rockets that survived first contact with reality. As it is, Marshall is still not working on a reusable rocket or a rocket that is economical enough to compete with commercial rockets. Why is that? Why isn’t Marshall the one leading the technical revolution, and why is it commercial space, not Marshall, that is implementing the latest technical innovations?
I have my own answers to these questions, but I would like your answers.
Our host, Robert, is right that NASA is no longer America’s national space program. There was a time when NASA was an innovational technical leader, but it no longer is. That honor belongs to commercial space, especially to SpaceX. There are companies trying to emulate SpaceX’s technologies and methods, but there are other companies innovating other technologies and methods.
When did NASA stop being a technology leader? I’m not sure, but it was not leading technologically when it used Space Shuttle hardware to make a poorer version of the Saturn V.
Am I a Marshall hater? If I am, Jeff, then you pointed out how ineffective they have been, these past several decades. Before reading your comments, I thought Marshall was doing OK, but you have shown me the light.
That assumes the inevitability of another leftist US administration. I think it is entirely probable that leftism’s time is about up. Their passing will not be quiet by any means, but the crazier the leftist agenda gets, the less appeal it has for ordinary Americans. There’s no political future in being on the short end of every 80-20 or 90-10 issue in American politics.
D’accord. I have been enjoying the Socialist Grand Tour. Collectivism is exposing itself, just by getting exposure, as the epitome of ‘All hat; no cattle”, while talking through their hat. Looking at the news the past few weeks, it seems dependency on others is a hard sell to people who came here looking to make a buck. And they aren’t the only ones. A NAACP call for Black athlete boycotts of Southern colleges has fallen on ears deafened by the lure of NIL. Brother; ain’t no one givin’ up money for some battle that was won long ago. It’s a nation of people looking to make a dollar; and turning that agency over to others isn’t the way to success. As one author noted, Socialism is mostly a salve for White college-graduate discontents.
Not to be Gospodin Dangling Participle or anything, but if SpaceX is handing Brownsville both money and infrastructure, then the land being conveyed isn’t exactly a gift.
I hate this site because of all the garbage pinned that I have to scroll past (and the articles aren’t very in-depth). I clicked the link accidently. Decided I might as well tell you why it sucks because hopefully I’ll never be back.
Fitting.