Sportsmen dispute results of spaceport impact study
Las Cruces Sun-News
“Sportsmen in Doña Ana County said Thursday a draft environmental study for a proposed spaceport is problematic because it fails to adequately consider impacts to wildlife.
“Members of four sportsmen and wildlife groups spoke up at public hearing hosted by the Federal Aviation Administration. The session was meant to solicit feedback on a draft environmental study completed last month by the agency.
“‘The big disagreement is they find there’s no significant impact,’ said Angel Montoya, representing the Doña Ana County Associated Sportsmen.’”
Considering rocket launches at nearby White Sands Missile Range already occur…this is where Apollo rockets were tested and large rocket launches still occur, I would have to argue that there would be no “additional” impact from rocket launches in the area than there are already. Moreover, White Sands boasts hundreds of wild animals–including Oryx–that seem to be doing just fine… in fact, I feel they need to increase those lottery tags on Oryx because I seem to have near-collisions with them every time I drive up the back side of the range.
As far as construction and development goes, it seems that it wouldn’t hamper much habitat in the area from thriving. I’ve been out to that dusty range of land called Spaceport America–and those tracts of land are much larger than the spaceport’s infrastructure will ever occupy–I mean MUCH larger.
I’ve also been to a much more developed spaceport recently–the one down in Kourou, French Guiana where the European Space Agency and others launch probes, satellites, and space station modules into space. There is a heck of a lot more bio-diversity there in that rain forest and it all seems to thrive quite well with the huge infrastructure there and massive rocket launches they do. To date, many independent experts and studies report that there has been no significant impact on the wildlife there–and this after 40 years of operations.
I think I’d worry more about jetskies out at Elephant Butte Lake scaring my fish before I’d worry about a spaceport being built where space activities have been occurring for decades.
Just my $0.02
-Luke