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Environmentalist becomes first juror to swear oath on river water

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Friday, August 2, 2024

When jurors are called to court, they are required to swear on a holy book or make a secular promise to tell the truth.So court officials were perplexed when the environmental activist and barrister Paul Powlesland was called for jury service and produced a vial of river water and asked to swear on the River Roding.“To take water into court you have to sip it to make sure it’s not a bad substance,” said Powlesland, the founder of the River Roding Trust, a charity that works to clean up London’s third-largest river. “When they asked me to do that I thought, ‘Oooh, I don’t know what Thames Water have put in this.’”When Powlesland sought to swear on the water, the judge and usher at a London crown court – which lies within the catchment of the Roding – said they had never received such a request before. After some consultations, Powlesland was allowed to become probably the first person to make a legal oath in a British court based upon his devotion to a river – after he had given a secular affirmation to cover conventional legal bases.“I explained that nature is my God and I believe the Roding to be sacred and I manifest love in action for her, and in all the things that I do for her, and it would be a really meaningful promise to me,” said Powlesland. “I dipped my finger into a cup of the Roding water and said that ‘I swear on the River Roding from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames that I will faithfully try the case and give a true verdict according to the evidence.’“I got a feeling from the judge that he felt the truth in my voice, that this was a meaningful, sacred promise to me. It wasn’t just me playing silly buggers.”Paul Powlesland on his rowing boat on the River Roding. Photograph: Jill Mead/The GuardianPowlesland is also the co-founder of Lawyers for Nature, a group campaigning for elements of the natural world to be recognised in law in Britain. Rivers, lakes and rainforests have been given legal personhood in countries including New Zealand, Spain, Ecuador and Australia.Powlesland said he hoped his oath would inspire others to take similar action.“It’s another way of reintroducing the idea of nature as sacred back into our legal system, finding playful ways to demonstrate to the world that nature is alive, that nature is sacred and we have duties towards it,” he said.“I believe it’s the first time that anyone’s given a legal oath, a juror’s oath, on a river, and I hope that many others follow suit and animism is soon found more regularly in our courts.”

Paul Powlesland, the co-founder of Lawyers for Nature, says he considers the River Roding to be sacredWhen jurors are called to court, they are required to swear on a holy book or make a secular promise to tell the truth.So court officials were perplexed when the environmental activist and barrister Paul Powlesland was called for jury service and produced a vial of river water and asked to swear on the River Roding. Continue reading...

When jurors are called to court, they are required to swear on a holy book or make a secular promise to tell the truth.

So court officials were perplexed when the environmental activist and barrister Paul Powlesland was called for jury service and produced a vial of river water and asked to swear on the River Roding.

“To take water into court you have to sip it to make sure it’s not a bad substance,” said Powlesland, the founder of the River Roding Trust, a charity that works to clean up London’s third-largest river. “When they asked me to do that I thought, ‘Oooh, I don’t know what Thames Water have put in this.’”

When Powlesland sought to swear on the water, the judge and usher at a London crown court – which lies within the catchment of the Roding – said they had never received such a request before. After some consultations, Powlesland was allowed to become probably the first person to make a legal oath in a British court based upon his devotion to a river – after he had given a secular affirmation to cover conventional legal bases.

“I explained that nature is my God and I believe the Roding to be sacred and I manifest love in action for her, and in all the things that I do for her, and it would be a really meaningful promise to me,” said Powlesland. “I dipped my finger into a cup of the Roding water and said that ‘I swear on the River Roding from her source in Molehill Green to her confluence with the Thames that I will faithfully try the case and give a true verdict according to the evidence.’

“I got a feeling from the judge that he felt the truth in my voice, that this was a meaningful, sacred promise to me. It wasn’t just me playing silly buggers.”

Paul Powlesland on his rowing boat on the River Roding. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Powlesland is also the co-founder of Lawyers for Nature, a group campaigning for elements of the natural world to be recognised in law in Britain. Rivers, lakes and rainforests have been given legal personhood in countries including New Zealand, Spain, Ecuador and Australia.

Powlesland said he hoped his oath would inspire others to take similar action.

“It’s another way of reintroducing the idea of nature as sacred back into our legal system, finding playful ways to demonstrate to the world that nature is alive, that nature is sacred and we have duties towards it,” he said.

“I believe it’s the first time that anyone’s given a legal oath, a juror’s oath, on a river, and I hope that many others follow suit and animism is soon found more regularly in our courts.”

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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‘Britain’s wildlife safari’: baby boom in Norfolk as seal colonies flourish

Grey seals are growing in numbers on England’s east coast as a result of environmental safe havens and cleaner North Sea watersIt is a cold winter’s day to be lying on a beach, but the seal pup suckling from its mother doesn’t mind. A few metres away, a pregnant seal is burrowing into the sand, trying to get comfortable, while a third seal, which has just given birth, is touching noses with her newborn pup.The shoreline – a mass of seals and their white pups – is one of Britain’s greatest wildlife success stories: a grey seal colony on the east Norfolk coast. Continue reading...

It is a cold winter’s day to be lying on a beach, but the seal pup suckling from its mother doesn’t mind. A few metres away, a pregnant seal is burrowing into the sand, trying to get comfortable, while a third seal, which has just given birth, is touching noses with her newborn pup.The shoreline – a mass of seals and their white pups – is one of Britain’s greatest wildlife success stories: a grey seal colony on the east Norfolk coast.More than 1,200 seal pups were born between the colony in Horsey and a neighbouring beach in November, and 2,500 more are expected to be born before the breeding season ends in January. It is a dramatic increase since 2002, when the seals first formed a colony at Horsey and 50 pups were born.Richard Edwards, a volunteer seal warden at Winterton beach in Norfolk during the pupping season. Photograph: Joshua Bright/The GuardianStanding on a sand dune that overlooks the North Sea, Richard Edwards, a volunteer seal warden, is keeping a close watch over the colony from a distance. “We can all take pride that this is happening on our doorstep,” he says. “It’s incredible.”Why go to the wilds of Africa when there is such an extraordinary spectacle on the Norfolk coast, he asks, adding: “This is Britain’s wildlife safari.”Seals are flourishing about 50 miles farther south, too. In 2021, a group of grey seals established the first seal colony in nearby Suffolk and began breeding on a remote shingle beach at Orford Ness, now a National Trust site but once the location for cold war weapons-testing.“One day, there were none, and the next day there were 200,” says Matt Wilson, a countryside manager for the trust. “Since then, they’ve come back each year, and the juveniles have stayed.”Grey seals are known to form breakaway groups when colonies reach a certain size and Wilson says he is “fairly sure” the seals migrated from north Norfolk. In just three years, the number of pups born at the site has increased fivefold, with more than 600 seals recorded there this year.“Mortality seems to be much lower than in other colonies,” he says. The first seal pup of this season was born there just over a month ago.The 10-mile beach at Orford Ness, which is closed to the public in winter, is a safe haven for seals during their breeding season, says Wilson. “We don’t get a lot of big boats coming close to shore and disturbing the marine environment locally. Also, in bad weather, the seals can come farther inland to shelter behind a ridge.”The grey seal colony at Horsey in Norfolk. Access to the seals’ beaches is restricted over the breeding season. Photograph: Joshua Bright/The GuardianThis is crucial to the survival of the species because as sea levels rise and storms become more frequent and severe, conservationists fear the mortality rate of seal pups is rising.Sue Sayer, founder of the Seal Research Trust, says: “In Cornwall last year, we had more seal deaths than births – and over half were of seals under a year old.”If seals cannot move inland during a storm, pups can become separated from their mothers by a high surge of water or get washed out to sea. Edwards says: “They die of hypothermia or starvation, or drown.”Some species have seen dramatic declines of up to 90%, just on our site, so to have a species swimming against the tide is amazingIn Norfolk, the charity Friends of Horsey Seals has created a safe, fenced-off area of the dune where seals can retreat inland during a storm, and access to the seals’ beaches is restricted over the winter breeding season. Volunteer wardens such as Edwards patrol the site daily to raise awareness about the need for the public to keep their distance and keep dogs on leads: a female seal, if scared enough, will desert her pup and head into the sea.Volunteer seal wardens at Winterton beach in Norfolk try to keep the visiting public at a distance from the seals during the pupping season. Photograph: Joshua Bright/The GuardianWilson and Sayer speculate that more seals are breeding on the east coast because offshore windfarms may have provided a new footing there for underwater vegetation, crustaceans, molluscs, small fish and other marine life, creating a fish nursery that the seals are feeding on.The structures also form a physical barrier near the coast, pushing shipping traffic further out and preventing commercial fishing boats from competing with seals by the shoreline.Another likely cause of the population growth is that grey seals have been displaced from northern Scotland, where numbers of sand eels – which seals love to eat – have declined.“The seals seem to be moving south, and this is likely to be to do with food,” says Sayer. These seals may be preying on other displaced species, such as anchovies from the Bay of Biscay, which are becoming more common in southern British waters due to global heating, she suggested.Cleaner water in the North Sea may also have contributed to the increase in seal numbers on the east coast, she added. In 2021, an analysis of two decades of research by the North Sea Foundation revealed there is now 27% less beach waste on non-tourist beaches than there was 10 years ago.Another reason why seals are thriving in Britain today is that people are no longer hunting and killing them. “We only stopped culling seals in 1978 and it only became illegal for a fisher to kill a seal in March 2021,” says Sayer.For Wilson, the new seal colony in Suffolk is a source of hope. “We do a lot with wetland birds and waders,” he says. “Some species, particularly large gulls, have seen dramatic declines of up to 90% in their numbers, just on our site, never mind the national picture.“So, to have a species going in the opposite direction – literally, swimming against the tide – is amazing.”The success of the seal colony at Winterton-on-Sea can be measured in the 2,000 pups born there this season. Photograph: Joshua Bright/The Guardian

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Revealed: Thames Water diverted ‘cash for clean-ups’ to help pay bonuses

Exclusive: UK’s biggest water company assessed risks before cutting back on cost of environmental work, investigation showsThames Water intentionally diverted millions of pounds pledged for environmental clean-ups towards other costs including bonuses and dividends, the Guardian can reveal.The company, which serves more than 16 million customers, cut the funds after senior managers assessed the potential risks of such a move. Continue reading...

Thames Water intentionally diverted millions of pounds pledged for environmental clean-ups towards other costs including bonuses and dividends, the Guardian can reveal.The company, which serves more than 16 million customers, cut the funds after senior managers assessed the potential risks of such a move.Discussions – held in secret – considered the risk of a public and regulatory backlash if it emerged that cash set aside for work such as cutting river pollution had been spent elsewhere.This could be seen as a breach of the company’s licence commitments and leave it vulnerable to accusations it had broken the law, according to sources and material seen by the Guardian.Thames Water continued to pay staff bonuses worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, and also paid tens of millions in dividends as recently as March this year, while cutting back on its spending promises. The company did so despite public claims from its leaders that improvements to its environmental performance, including on pollution, were a priority.Wildlife presenter Liz Bonnin and naturalist and TV presenter Chris Packham join thousands of environmental campaigners from more than 130 organisations in a March for Clean Water on 3 November 2024 in London. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures/Getty ImagesSources told the Guardian that internal deliberations about cutting back on the environmental works occurred as early as the end of 2021 and throughout 2022, when bosses weighed up the political and reputational risks of such a move.Meanwhile, Thames continued to charge customers for the works and Ofwat was only formally told of some of the company’s plans not to deliver these major projects in August 2023. A letter, seen by the Guardian, was sent to the head of the regulator Ofwat, David Black, by the company’s then interim co-chief executive and former boss of the watchdog, Cathryn Ross.In its response to the Guardian and the 2023 letter to Ofwat, Thames said sharp increases in its costs such as energy and chemicals – which it claims went beyond standard measures of inflation – lay behind its decisions to delay the works.It told the regulator that it would not deliver 98 of 826 schemes under the water industry national environment programme (Winep) during the five-year window it had promised. The delivery of these projects, which include schemes to reduce phosphorus pollution in rivers, was a key justification for how much Thames was allowed to charge customers.The revelation comes as Britain’s biggest water company fights for its survival. It is trying to secure £3bn in emergency funding and at least £3.25bn more in equity investment to prevent its collapse, after years of poor performance, fines and hefty dividend payouts.Winep projects include statutory obligations for water companies with potential criminal liability if they breach their licence by failing to deliver them.Thames decided behind the scenes to hold up almost 100 projects as early as 2022 without first warning its regulators. Sources said of some of the projects Thames delayed were among the largest it agreed to do when it asked Ofwat for higher bills as part of its 2019 price review.The cuts to environmental works did not stop the company from paying dividends or bonuses to staff. It continued to pay both throughout the 2020-25 billing period, for which it claimed it lacked the funds to complete works.Ofwat fined the company £18.2m on 19 December for breaching rules on paying “unjustified” dividends, after the company paid out £37.5m in October 2023 and £158.3m in March 2024. On the same day it also gave Thames permission to increase consumer bills by 35% by 2030.Thames’s regulated water services are part of a sprawling network of holding companies. Dividends were paid out of its operating company up towards its shareholders.Ofwat’s dividend rules, which were toughened in April 2023, are meant to stop companies taking money out businesses where their performance does not merit it, and where the payouts do not take financial resilience into account, or “service delivery for customers and the environment”.A spokesperson for Thames Water did not deny that it had delayed environmental works that it had promised and been paid to carry out. The spokesperson also did not deny that some of the funds had been used for other business costs including bonuses and dividend payments.When first asked for a response by the Guardian, Thames said that allegations that it had diverted funds were “entirely false and without merit”.In a later statement, Thames said only that the allegation that it did so “secretly” was false.In public statements from its six chief executives over the past five years, Thames has consistently maintained its position that environmental improvements are a high priority for the company.“Maintaining and improving the health of the rivers in our area matters to me, and I have made reducing pollution a key part of the turnaround plan for the company,” Chris Weston, the current chief executive at Thames Water, said in a river health report published by the company this year. His comments echo those of predecessors in the top job at the water company.The document states that “addressing the level of nutrients (particularly phosphorus) in our rivers remains a key focus”, despite the company secretly trying to cut the money pledged to address such concerns.Phosphorus in rivers and waterways can cause algal blooms that suffocate wildlife.“It is right that we are held to account for complying with our legal obligations,” Weston said on a call with journalists on 10 December, as he noted a sharp increase in pollution caused by the business.“We’ve also maintained high levels of capital investment for the benefit of our customers and the environment,” its former joint chief executive and chief financial officer Alastair Cochran said on the same call.The government’s Winep effort was created to address water companies’ “role in protecting and enhancing the environment” after a series of sewage and pollution scandals. It was intended to “challenge” water suppliers to provide resilient, safe and environment enhancing services to consumers.Thames could face criminal prosecution and unlimited fines if it was found to have breached its permits by Ofwat or the Environment Agency (EA).The EA has fined water companies more than £130m since 2015 and fined Southern Water £90m in 2021, after what was then its largest ever criminal investigation.In response to detailed questions from the Guardian, a Thames spokesperson said: “The allegation of ‘secretly diverted money’ is entirely false and without merit.“The board and leadership team of Thames Water remain focused on turning round the business, and have submitted to Ofwat a robust business plan for the next five years that proposes record investment in our assets.“We’ve been very open about the challenges of delivering all the elements of our Winep 7 programme, which has been impacted by cost increases that are higher than the inflation index applied to our allowances. In this Winep 7 period, we are forecast to spend £601m against an allowance of £369m. This is well documented in our business plan for 2025-30 and on our website.“We remain fully committed to delivering all our Winep commitments, and indeed all the outstanding projects are currently under way and in the process of being delivered.“Shareholders have not received an external dividend since 2017, and our business plan assumes dividends will not be paid before 2030.”

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South Texas Groups Sue State Agency for Allowing SpaceX to Discharge Industrial Water Without Permit

Rio Grande Valley groups are accusing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in a lawsuit of bypassing state regulations by allowing SpaceX to temporarily discharge industrial water at its South Texas launch site without a proper permit

MCALLEN, Texas (AP) — Rio Grande Valley groups are suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, accusing the agency of bypassing state regulations by allowing SpaceX to temporarily discharge industrial water at its South Texas launch site without a proper permit.The groups — the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, along with the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and Save RGV — filed the lawsuit Monday after the agency decided last month to allow SpaceX to continue its operations for 300 days or until the company obtained the appropriate permit.It is the latest in a string of lawsuits filed by environmental groups aimed at curbing the possible environmental impacts of SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica on the southern tip of Texas.Earlier this year, TCEQ cited SpaceX for discharging water into nearby waterways after it was used to protect the launchpad from heat damage during Starship launches four times this year.SpaceX did not admit to any violation but agreed to pay a $3,750 penalty. Part of the penalty was deferred until SpaceX obtains the proper permit and on the condition that future water discharges meet pollution restrictions.The environmental groups say that allowing SpaceX to continue is a violation of permitting requirements and that TCEQ is acting outside of its authority.“The Clean Water Act requires the TCEQ to follow certain procedural and technical requirements when issuing discharge permits meant to protect public participation and ensure compliance with Texas surface water quality standards,” Lauren Ice, the attorney for the three Rio Grande Valley organizations, said in a statement.“By bypassing these requirements, the Commission has put the Boca Chica environment at risk of degradation,” Ice said.A TCEQ spokesperson said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.Some of the Rio Grande Valley groups are also involved in a lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration for allegedly failing to conduct an environmental review of SpaceX’s rocket test launch in April. The case remains pending in federal court.They also sued the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for agreeing to a land exchange that would give 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX in exchange for 477 acres adjacent to Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. SpaceX canceled the deal in November.This story was originally published by The Texas Tribune and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

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After Victory Over Florida in Water War, Georgia Will Let Farmers Drill New Irrigation Wells

For more than a decade, farmers in parts of southwest Georgia haven’t been able to drill new irrigation wells to the Floridian aquifer

ATLANTA (AP) — Jason Cox, who grows peanuts and cotton in southwest Georgia, says farming would be economically impossible without water to irrigate his crops.“I'd be out of business,” said Cox, who farms 3,000 acres (1,200 hectares) acres around Pelham.For more than a decade, farmers in parts of southwest Georgia haven't been able to drill new irrigation wells to the Floridian aquifer, the groundwater nearest the surface. That's because Georgia put a halt to farmers drilling wells or taking additional water from streams and lakes in 2012. Farmers like Cox, though, will get a chance to drill new wells beginning in April. Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday that Georgia's Environmental Protection Division will begin accepting applications for new agricultural wells in areas along the lower Flint River starting April 1. Jeff Cown, the division's director, said in a statement that things have changed since 2012. The moratorium was imposed amid a parching drought and the collapse of the once-prolific oyster fishery in Florida's Apalachicola Bay. The state of Florida sued in 2013, arguing that Georgia's overuse of water from the Flint was causing negative impacts downstream where the Flint and Chattahoochee River join to become the Apalachicola River. But a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 rejected the lawsuit, saying Florida hadn't proved its case that water use by Flint River farmers was at fault.That was one lawsuit in decades of sprawling litigation that mostly focused on fear that Atlanta’s ever-growing population would suck up all the upstream water and leave little for uses downstream. The suits include the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint system and the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa system, which flows out of Georgia to drain much of Alabama. Georgia also won victories guaranteeing that metro Atlanta had rights to water from the Chattahoochee River's Lake Lanier to quench its thirst.Georgia officials say new water withdrawals won't disregard conservation. No new withdrawals from streams or lakes will be allowed. And new wells will have to stop sucking up water from the Floridian aquifer when a drought gets too bad, in part to protect water levels in the Flint, where endangered freshwater mussels live. New wells will also be required to be connected to irrigation systems that waste less water and can be monitored electronically, according to a November presentation posted by the environmental agency.In a statement, Cown said the plans "support existing water users, including farmers, and set the stage to make room for new ones. We look forward to working with all water users as they obtain these newly, developed permits.”Georgia had already been taking baby steps in this direction by telling farmers they could withdraw water to spray vulnerable crops like blueberries during freezing temperatures.Flint Riverkeeper Gordon Rogers, who heads the environmental organization of the same name, said Georgia's action is “good news.” He has long contended that the ban on new withdrawals was “an admission of failure," showing how Georgia had mismanaged water use along the river. But he said investments in conservation are paying off: Many farmers are installing less wasteful irrigators and some agreed to stop using existing shallow wells during drought in exchange for subsidies to drill wells to deeper aquifers that don't directly influence river flow.“What we’re going to do is make it more efficient, make it more equitable and make it more fair," Rogers said. "And we’re in the middle of doing that.”A lawyer for Florida environmental groups that contend the Apalachicola River and Bay are being harmed declined comment in an email. Representatives for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and state Attorney General Ashley Moody did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Cox, who lives about 165 miles (265 kilometers) south of Atlanta, said he's interested in drilling a new well on some land that he owns. Right now, that land relies on water from a neighboring farmer's well. He knows the drought restrictions would mean there would be times he couldn't water his crops, but said data he's seen show there wouldn't have been many days over the last 10 years when he would have been barred from irrigating, and that most of those days wouldn't have been during peak watering times for his crops.Three years ago, Cox drilled a well for some land into a deeper aquifer, but he said even spending $30,000 or more on a shallower well would boost the productivity and value of his land.“It would enhance my property if I had a well myself," Cox said.Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Sept. 2024

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South Texas groups sue TCEQ for temporarily allowing SpaceX to discharge industrial water without a permit

In the lawsuit, the groups accuse TCEQ of exceeding its authority by allowing the discharges.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. McALLEN — Rio Grande Valley groups are suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, accusing the agency of bypassing state regulations by allowing SpaceX to temporarily discharge industrial water at its South Texas launch site without a proper permit. The groups — the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, along with the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas, and Save RGV — filed the lawsuit Monday after the agency decided last month to allow SpaceX to continue its operations for 300 days or until the company obtained the appropriate permit. It is the latest in a string of lawsuits filed by environmental groups aimed at curbing the possible environmental impacts of SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica on the southern tip of Texas. Earlier this year, TCEQ cited SpaceX for discharging water into nearby waterways after it was used to protect the launchpad from heat damage during Starship launches four times this year. SpaceX did not admit to any violation but agreed to pay a $3,750 penalty. Part of the penalty was deferred until SpaceX obtains the proper permit and on the condition that future water discharges meet pollution restrictions. The environmental groups say that allowing SpaceX to continue is a violation of permitting requirements and that TCEQ is acting outside of its authority. “The Clean Water Act requires the TCEQ to follow certain procedural and technical requirements when issuing discharge permits meant to protect public participation and ensure compliance with Texas surface water quality standards," Lauren Ice, the attorney for the three Rio Grande Valley organizations, said in a statement. "By bypassing these requirements, the Commission has put the Boca Chica environment at risk of degradation," Ice said. The most important Texas news,sent weekday mornings. A TCEQ spokesperson said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation. Some of the Rio Grande Valley groups are also involved in a lawsuit against the Federal Aviation Administration for allegedly failing to conduct an environmental review of SpaceX's rocket test launch in April. The case remains pending in federal court. They also sued the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for agreeing to a land exchange that would give 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX in exchange for 477 acres adjacent to Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. SpaceX canceled the deal in November. Reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc. Disclosure: Texas Parks And Wildlife Department has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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