At the edge of Texas, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is staging a land grab. Already under EPA investigation for mercury pollution near its Starbase site, the company is now backing a bill to let the soon-to-be city of “Starbase” — shut down public access to Boca Chica Beach at will. Locals now fear poisoned waters, vanishing rights, and being “priced out of survival.”

The proposed bill would strip public land control from Cameron County and hand it to a proxy Musk mini-government. Starbase, the yet-to-be-formed city, is expected to be stacked with SpaceX insiders and would act as Musk’s proxy government, tightening the company’s grip over land, law, and launchpads.

The Senate has already passed the bill along party lines. If the House follows suit, the city of Starbase could lock down Boca Chica Beach every weekday afternoon — leaving only weekends under county oversight. But opponents say even that deal guts Texas’s constitutional promise of open, public beaches. Some call it an unprecedented land grab veiled as innovation. 

"Why is it that we are singling out this particular city, this particular company town, for more control while all other municipalities across the state, we are curtailing their authority?" Democratic Senator Sarah Eckhardt implored per Kut News.

"If you don't like the way the commissioners court is voting, then you could just start your own city, right?"

The Price of SpaceX in One of America's Poorest Cities

SpaceX’s footprint in Brownsville — where nearly 25% live below the poverty line and the median income hovers under $49,000 — has transformed the city into a controversial company town. 

SpaceX has impacted the community with sonic booms and mass displacement, but its human toll runs deeper. More than 600 previously unreported worker injuries at the company, including crushed limbs, amputations, head trauma, and at least one death. Injury rates at its Brownsville facility hit 4.8 per 100 workers in 2022 — six times the space industry average, a Reuters investigation found.

“I’m old enough to remember when company towns were frowned upon. And then everyone was very deliberately priced out of survival,”  one X user wrote. 

“I wonder what the cancer rate is in this town since SpaceX came,” another said.

Though Musk defenders argue the company created jobs and brought innovation, others say it's come at too steep a cost. Environmental groups have filed lawsuits after SpaceX’s rockets scorched protected parkland, displaced wildlife, and triggered multiple Clean Water Act violations​.

Investigations into SpaceX, Environmental Health Concerns

SpaceX has been under scrutiny from both the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the EPA for operating a water deluge system without permits. The system, meant to reduce launchpad damage, discharged water with dangerous mercury levels — up to 113 micrograms per liter, far exceeding the state’s legal limit of 2.1 for aquatic life​.

Environmental engineer Kenneth Teague warned the toxic runoff poses “very large exceedances of the mercury water quality criteria” and could devastate local marine ecosystems. Despite this, SpaceX continues to operate, stating that regulators have allowed them to proceed even amid violations.

Mercury is “one of the most serious contaminants threatening our nation’s waters because it is a potent neurological poison in fish, wildlife, and humans,” states a  U.S. Geological Survey.

What Comes Next

With the bill inching closer to passage, grassroots groups are fighting back in court, challenging the legality of beach closures under a 2013 law. 

Meanwhile, SpaceX is pushing to ramp up from five to 25 launches annually. The standoff at Boca Chica is about who controls land, law, and livelihoods in a place where the dream of spaceflight now collides with environmental justice and economic disparity.