WE WONDERED ABOUT IT YEARS AGO, FEDS WONDERING NOW

(Back a few years ago we asked whether the coming of the LNG plants just a few miles up the beach from the then-proposed SpaceX launch site would constitute a danger. At the time, we were considered Cassandras standing against eh force of progress. To date, there have been no launches here but now the Federal energy Regulatory Commission is asking the same questions. We reprint the post her today after several mishaps that resulted in explosions have bedeviled Elon Musk's SpaceX.)

By Juan Montoya
With three potential bidders for his private commercial satellite launch site clamoring to shower him with millions in "incentives," billionaire Elon Musk is sitting in the catbird seat.
There's Space Florida with more than $20 million and a launch site next to Cape Canaveral making its offering. Then there's the State of Georgia and Puerto Rico offering their tribute.

Musk can now lay back and see which one will up the ante to entice him to go there.
The announcement that the Federal Aviation Administration’s Record of Decision will issue licenses and permits to consider allowing Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to build a rocket launch site in Cameron County, leaves it up to Musk to decide if he wants to build the launch pad here.
SpaceX can apply for those licenses and the FAA has 180 days  to decide to approve or deny the proposal.

But SpaceX is playing coy with the suitors,much as Penelope did in the Odyssey.
“Brownsville remains a finalist for SpaceX’s development of a commercial orbital launch complex, and SpaceX appreciates the FAA’s commitment and work in developing today’s record of decision,” said SpaceX spokeswoman Hannah Post.

“There remain several criteria that will need to be met before SpaceX makes a decision. We are hopeful that these will be complete in the near future.”
Fast forward to sometime in the future.

rocket launch goes bad and range directors decide to abort it. Fragments of the rocket crash into the LNG plant at the Port of Brownsville (we said future, remember?) and start a chain-reaction explosion that rocks the Port, spills over onto the chemical and oil storage tanks and gasoline-laden barges that have to dock pending the launch.
Traffic on the Intercoastal Waterway has to stop. No ships can sail or shrimp boats can go up and down the channel.

The explosion of oil, gasoline and chemicals stored at the port spill into the channel and are carried to the ecosensitive Laguna Madre through the Bahia and into the Gulf of Mexico. South Padre Island resembles post-Ixtoc. Toxic chemicals litter the pristine wildlife habitat of Boca Chica Beach and its surrounding wetlands that will take decades to clean.
Far-fetched, you say?

How many disasters occurred during NASA launches? Remember?
A pair of nitrogen tanks at SpaceX rocket test facility in McGregor, Texas, exploded late Nov. 26, local authorities reported then. It didn't even involve the Falcon 9 rocketsw that will be used here if the company deigns to take over Boca Chica.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket that was used to launch Thailand’s Thaicom 6 satellite had undergone testing at McGregor but was not at the site when the explosion occurred. The rocket had already been shipped to Cape Canaveral, Fla., in preparation for a scheduled Dec. 20 launch.

News reports at the time said that the explosion startled some nearby residents, who registered their surprise in Facebook posts of their own, and in comments below the sheriff’s post.
“I think I just felt my first earthquake!” Duane Price-Hannah wrote before reading the sheriff’s report. “You never know because we live close to SpaceX and also feel things when Fort Hood is playing in the field. This one scared me and was different!”
“I honestly thought it was Ft. Hood practicing a big bomb,” said a post by Kisha Hornung.