New from @gaigedavila.bsky.social: As deep South Texas
prepares for its first gas
export facility, the Observer
has reported out the impacts
of LNG facilities in the
industrialized town of
Freeport and in Cameron
Parish, Louisiana.
$GaigeDavila, (Venmo) @Gaige-Davila, DM for Zelle.
I'm moving to Phoenix next month to attend ASU's Master's in Investigative Journalism program. My plan is to come back to Texas after. It's the worst time to leave, but I can't make a living here right now. On that same note, I need help to get to school. Any donations are appreciated, if you can.
“It changes your life when you get arrested and you see everything that you ever had about to go away because you were trying to provide a living. A lot of these people provide work for people because nobody else wants to do the job.”
That should have been followed up on. Why does SpaceX want the state to regulate road closures and not the county?
"Villarreal said that, while SpaceX currently has to go through the county to schedule closures of S.H. 4 and Boca Chica Beach, he’s been informed that the company is in Austin lobbying legislators for the state rather than the county to regulate the closures."
Here is the Starbase boundary from Cameron County, which is largely illegible.
Of all the comments and shares this post has gotten, they are overwhelmingly against this election. It'll be only "Starbase" residents (SpaceX employees) that get to vote, essentially making an election moot. Cameron County residents, more than 99% of them, have no electoral say in this.
Something I've noticed across RGV social media is people talking abt how the county is not addressing what Musk has been doing/saying for the last few weeks. The county and City of Brownsville always seem to view Musk and SpaceX as separate entities. But they aren't, and the people here know that.
The comments on the Cameron County Judge's FB post on the "Starbase" election. Yesterday I noticed that you couldn't see any comments regardless of what filter you selected. Others did too, and now all the comments are visible now. I've never seen this much resistance to the county on a post.
Cameron County is holding an official election for incorporating "Starbase."
Something interesting: the post says there's over 45 comments, but you can't see them. Others are pointing this out and accusing the Cameron County Judge's office page of deleting comments.
From @gaigedavila.bsky.social, in our magazine: The hope is that the more people who see Boca Chica Beach and feel its connection to the Valley’s collective memory, the more likely it will be saved from further development.
"Given the lack of previous stakeholder participation, a change in spacecraft type, and the dramatically expanded area, which is further affected by ocean currents, it is unclear what the impact will be on Hawaii."
Hawai'i's state legislature submitted a bill last week demanding the FAA launch a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on SpaceX's Starship program.
Brazos Santiago Pass
This yard would be just off Highway 48, behind the Jetstream RV Resort.
www.google.com/maps/@25.993...
NextDecade is trying to expand into Brownsville through an offsite storage yard. At 117 acres, it would include "a single-
story office trailer, equipment such as cranes of various sizes and boom heights, and piles of stored materials up to 10 feet in height."
elibrary.ferc.gov/eLibrary/fil...
Plans for a massive Rio Grande LNG export terminal along the Texas Gulf Coast have drawn criticism from environmental groups, Native American tribes and others.
Developer NextDecade is now seeking support from influential allies to advance the project.
Spoke with @texasstandard.bsky.social about my @texasobserver.org story on Brownsville officials taking talking points and op-eds from NextDecade.
A Sierra Club and Greenpeace report estimates that air pollution from currently operating LNG facilities nationwide causes $957 million in health costs and 60 premature deaths a year.
The controversial LNG plant is replacing 984 acres of wetlands northeast of Brownsville in the sensitive Laguna Madre area, a crucial habitat for migratory birds and ocelots separated from the Gulf by the Padre barrier island.
None of the county officials I mentioned in the story responded to my questions by press time. The City of Brownsville, well past the deadline I had given them, said this story was "inaccurate" in a statement but didn't detail how.
"We need you to do interviews,” Keane said during an August 13 meeting with the group, according to a recording of the meeting in the emails I got.
“I think everyone here should be willing to write letters to the editor, do interviews, do social media.”
That strategy was directed past local officials too.
Keane told members of RGLNG’s Community Advisory Board—composed of local business and civic leaders—that they also needed to talk to the press about Rio Grande LNG.
All of this was part of a larger media strategy by NextDecade, which included having Cameron County and City of Brownsville officials in meetings with "outside communication consultants" and the company.
“The Brownsville Herald is writing another article,” Keane wrote to Cowen and Ramirez on August 13. “Would you mind call [sic] the reporter and provide [sic] your comments?”
The comms director provided NextDecade executives with talking points to use when speaking with the reporter, which David Keane, NextDecade's Senior VP of Policy and Corporate Affairs, then forwarded to Cowen and Ramirez.
NextDecade also sent talking points to Brownsville's mayor and city manager when a reporter sought comment for a story on the court order.
NextDecade's director of communications said in an email that a prior Brownsville Herald story on the order was “almost all Sierra Club messaging.”
Both of those officials had op-eds published in local outlets either using talking points (Cowen) or a draft (Treviño) written by NextDecade. Both pieces used those NextDecade-provided materials word-for-word in some paragraphs.
“Our PR team advises that having an op-ed from a Brownsville elected official regarding the US Circuit Court issue would be a powerful message,” NextDecade’s Head of Community Relations Andrea Figueroa Benton wrote to Brownsville Mayor John Cowen and City Manager Helen Ramirez.
