Independent journalism from the South Texas borderlands

Friday morning LIVE + this week's interview on The Texas Standard

Join me for a live discussion on Friday morning on Mexican environmental activists pushing back against SpaceX rocket launches in Tamaulipas, and listen to an interview on this story with The Texas Standard.

Friday morning LIVE + this week's interview on The Texas Standard
A sunset in the port city of Tampico, Tamaulipas Mexico. (Stock)

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For years, environmental groups in South Texas have petitioned and sued the federal government to stop rocket launches at the Starbase SpaceX facility where the world's most powerful rocket, Starship, is being developed by Elon Musk's company.

But this week, I wrote for The Border Chronicle about communities on the Mexican side of the border who are now reporting the same kind of effects we've heard about from residents in the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas — industrial debris, loss of endangered wildlife, structural damage to buildings and other effects from extreme sound and vibrations.

Some of those residents in Mexico, along with environmental groups in the state of Tamaulipas, are beginning to organize protests on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico during rocket launches from Starbase.

A map showing the proximity of the SpaceX facility Starbase in the U.S. to the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. (Google Earth)

This is one of the more shocking stories I've covered this year. During a political demonstration, activists on small boats were met by helicopters performing low fly-overs. One of the organizations I interviewed said their vessels became destabilized and they feared being capsized into the ocean.

Check out the full article here, and join me on Friday morning for a live discussion on this story. You can also listen to an interview with The Texas standard this week on this story now. More details below.

Live discussion on The Border Chronicle

Join me on Friday morning, September 12 at 11:30 a.m. CST for a discussion on Substack live with The Border Chronicle's Todd Miller about what really happened out on the water that day, the communities in Mexico who enjoy no economic benefits from the Starbase project but still deal with its effects, and Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum's threat to sue SpaceX for environmental damages.

To join the live video discussion
Get the Substack app for ios or for andriod.
Livestream link
https://open.substack.com/live-stream/58734
Livestream time
Friday morning, September 12 at 11:30 a.m. CST

Interview with The Texas Standard

You can also listen to this week's interview on this story with KTEP's Angela Kocherga at The Texas Standard, the 'national daily news show of Texas' here: Protestors in Mexico oppose impact of bigger SpaceX launches

About The Author

Award-winning journalist Pablo De La Rosa reports from the Texas-Mexico border, where he was born and raised. He covers stories from the Rio Grande Valley and North Tamaulipas.

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