SpaceX wants to give 477 acres of land just outside Port Isabel to Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPWD) in exchange for 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park land near the company’s South Texas facilities.
Spread between two parcels, one with 430 acres and another with 47 acres, the land is adjacent to the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge’s Bahia Grande Unit. The larger parcel borders a portion of the South Texas Eco Tourism Center, which is a Cameron County facility, a Stripes convenience store in Laguna Vista and the southeastern portion of Laguna Heights.
The smaller parcel is on the shoreline of the Laguna Madre, in between the affluent Paradise Cove subdivision of Laguna Vista and a trailer park in Laguna Heights. The parcels were formerly part of the Yturria family’s vast swath of land in South Texas before they were sold to Bahia Grande Holdings, LLC, according to county property records.
While the Yturrias still have the mineral rights to the property, the land itself was purchased in late 2021, with Jeffrey Jacob Knowlton, the chief financial officer of Conservation Holdings, LLC, signing the deed on behalf of Bahia Grande Holdings. The Dallas-based company purchased the land from the Yturria family for $2.2 million.
Further records show that the land is a permittee responsible mitigation (PRM) site managed by Conservation Equity Partners, referring to the acreage between Laguna Vista and Laguna Heights as the “Bahia Grande Mitigation Bank.”
Companies use PRM’s to offset, or mitigate, damage to sensitive environments they are developing over. The purchased land, sometimes near where the other land is being developed, is conserved as part of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit requirements or another regulatory stipulation.
It’s not clear when SpaceX sought the land or how much money it’s paying for it. Representatives from Conservation Holdings, Conservation Equity Fund and Ironwood Resource Advisors — who listed the land on its website as one of its projects but has since been removed — did not respond to TPR’s request for comment.
It’s also not clear who wanted the land first: SpaceX or Texas Parks and Wildlife. But before either worked on this land exchange, Cameron County had plans to develop the land recreationally.
In a letter to TPWD’s commissioners obtained by TPR, Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. said the county was applying for federal grants to purchase the land for an unspecified project and opposed the land exchange. Trevino then asked TPWD for the county to be involved with whatever plans the agency had for developing the land.
“Cameron County has invested much time and energy creating a conceptual use for the 477 acres identified in the potential land swap with a focus on preserving and restoring the diverse pristine ecological habitats of South Texas while simultaneously expanding public access to the land for residents and visitors which has been privately owned and off limits,” Trevino wrote.
Cameron County Commissioner David Garza, who’s district encompasses the land, told the Brownsville Herald that the county was planning to expand the South Texas Ecotourism Center using the property.
Specifically, the county wanted to use the smaller parcel of land for a kayak launching area and trail with two parking lots on either end. That project would have been funded using a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) grant the county applied for on Jan. 9, Garza told the Herald. Garza says that NOAA prompted the county to acquire the land.
The county’s plan was to buy the larger parcel with the RESTORE Act funds. The larger parcel of land would remain untouched in accordance with monies the county received from the RESTORE Act, which they received after BP’s oil spill in 2010.
TPWD commissioners were meant to vote on the exchange last week but pulled the item after more than a thousand people wrote in opposition to the deal. The commissioners are now set to vote on the exchange in late March.
Much of the criticism addressed the timing of the process. Save RGV, a nonprofit advocating against SpaceX and liquefied natural gas plants in the region, called the vote and public comment process rushed.
TPWD’s code says public hearings must be posted 30 days before a TPWD commission meeting. But TPWD’s first notice of the land swap, which was published in the Herald on Jan. 6, was 18 days before the TPWD’s commission meeting on Jan. 25.
Subsequent notices were published for two consecutive weeks in the Herald on Jan. 10 and Jan. 13. TPWD’s code also says that notices must be published in newspapers circulated six days a week. The Brownsville Herald, along with AIM Media’s other news publications, is only published twice a week.
TPWD did not answer whether it would provide notices in Spanish or why the agency did not post notices in accordance with their code when TPR posed those questions. A TPWD spokesperson instead said that the land exchange “could provide mutual benefits” to the agency and SpaceX by extending protection of the state’s natural resources and for the company to expand. “TPWD looks forward to working with the public, and city and county officials on future plans,” the agency said.
TPWD seemed intent on making the land exchange happen regardless of Cameron County’s plans.
After pulling a voter on the land exchange from the commission’s January meeting, TPWD Commission Chairman Jeffery Hildebrand said he was still intent on “completing the transaction” despite the delay.
“The opportunity to expand our park system through this land swap is of essential importance to the State of Texas,” Hildebrand said.
TPR filed a public information request on communications between TPWD and the investment groups who own the land at the center of the exchange.
