Lawsuit Seeks to Stop SpaceX Land Deal From Destroying Texas Wildlife Refuge

Tribal and conservation groups today sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop a land trade that would hand 715 acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in south Texas to SpaceX. In exchange for these lands, SpaceX is giving 683 acres to the Service.

Under the law, any exchanges of wildlife refuge lands must result in net conservation benefits to both the individual refuge where land will be exchanged and the wildlife refuge system as a whole. The wildlife habitat that SpaceX has sought to take ownership of has been degraded by SpaceX’s expanding operations and failed rocket launches. In its decision last week, the Fish and Wildlife Service chose to give those lands to SpaceX in exchange for fewer acres of private lands, the majority of which will be added to a separate wildlife refuge.

This land deal resulting in the loss of more than 700 acres of a national wildlife refuge is one of the largest exchanges of land in the refuge system’s history outside the state of Alaska.

“Our protected public lands are being gifted for the benefit of the world’s richest man, who could trash them while playing with his exploding rockets,” said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge was built by decades of conservation work and funded by millions of taxpayer dollars to protect our vulnerable wildlife like ocelots and piping plovers. We’re not letting Trump and his political cronies lock the American people out of Texas’ cherished public lands just to give Elon Musk another payday.”

Today’s lawsuit alleges that the Fish and Wildlife Service violated the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997 by taking action that will permanently reduce and degrade the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. In approving the transfer, the Service also violated the National Historic Preservation Act by giving away hundreds of acres of a National Historic Landmark. The transfer approval also violated the National Environmental Policy Act.

Congress created this wildlife refuge in 1979 to protect its diverse wildlife, including rare species like ocelots, aplomado falcons, and migratory birds such as piping plovers, red knots, green jays and Altamira orioles. The refuge protects some of the best remaining habitat in the United States for the endangered ocelot.

In 2014 SpaceX chose the nearby Boca Chica area as the location of a rocket launch site and a test site, and it has rapidly expanded its operations and activities in the area. This included numerous rocket launches, some of which have resulted in catastrophic explosions that have propelled debris for miles onto refuge lands, including concrete and metal.

“Elon Musk has built his explosive SpaceX facility in the middle of a major wildlife corridor home to endangered and threatened species like ocelots and wetlands. There was never supposed to be space rockets blowing up here,” said Bekah Hinojosa, a Brownsville native, and co-founder of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network. “Our community opposes these latest hostile land grabs by SpaceX of our wildlife habitat and Boca Chica beach. This habitat land is meant to be preserved for future generations, not for billionaires to find later and destroy.”

In the years following SpaceX’s arrival, it has vastly expanded its operations around the wildlife refuge, increasing manufacturing facilities and adding a second launch pad. In 2025 the Federal Aviation Administration authorized SpaceX to conduct 25 Starship launches per year — a fivefold increase from the previous limit. Launch failures have triggered explosions and wildfires on refuge lands and scattered chunks of concrete and metal more than 6 miles from the launch pad.

Post-explosion surveys have revealed environmental damage to nearby lands on the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. A 2024 study found that after one launch every single monitored shorebird nest near the launch site suffered egg damage or loss. Instead of taking any enforcement actions or working with SpaceX to reduce or eliminate its harm to the refuge, the Service accepted the damage to the lands and now points to the supposed lowered conservation value as justification for the land exchange.

The refuge lands being transferred to SpaceX also include significant portions of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark, which is the site of the final battle of the Civil War. Even though the site is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and protected as a historic landmark, these historic lands would be privatized and SpaceX could choose not to preserve their historic values or limit public access to the battlefield.

“The refuge is a national public treasure with immense ecological and cultural value. The tract being swapped to SpaceX, whose arrival here has been an unmitigated disaster, will permanently sever the very heart of the wildlife corridor established by Congress in 1979,” said Mary Angela Branch, board member at Save RGV. “This corridor, running along the Rio Grande River, is prime wildlife habitat, and nothing gained in this ‘swap’ will be equal. This will be a huge loss. The federal government should protect our public land for future generations, not turn them into hellscapes for soon-to-be trillionaire corporate interests.”

The proposed land exchange was first made public in March 2026, but records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show internal agency planning began as early as April 2025. In those discussions with the regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Service developed “the most expedited schedule possible” for completing a transfer and recommended hiring additional staff to meet what they described as an “optimum timeframe.” This request came when Musk was leading his Department of Government Efficiency and publicly threatened to fire federal workers who failed to justify their jobs to him.

“SpaceX has been a nightmare of a neighbor to the Lower Rio Grande Valley wildlife refuge for years, callously harming wildlife that call these special places home,” said Jordahl. “It’s shameful and insulting that this sweetheart deal has been rammed through just to placate another billionaire in Trump’s orbit. We’ll fight this outrageous sell-out of our public lands with everything we’ve got.”

“This refuge is sacred to me and to the Carrizo/Comecrudo People,” said Juan Mancias, member of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas. “Our ancestors have lived with this land, these waters, and these migration pathways since time immemorial. We are not separate from this place — we are of this continent, and our connection to it cannot be bought, exchanged, or erased. The transfer of these sacred lands to SpaceX continues a long history of colonial dispossession and tribal erasure. We have survived centuries of colonial genocide, and we will continue to resist every attempt to erase our existence, our culture, and our responsibilities to the land. We are still here, and we will continue this fight for as many years and generations as it takes.”

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the Center for Biological Diversity, Save RGV, The Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, Inc, and South Texas Environmental Justice Network.

Plaintiffs are represented by Center for Biological Diversity attorneys Marc Fink, Brandon Jones-Cobb and Ivan Ditmars.