𝗘𝗟𝗢𝗡 𝗠𝗨𝗦𝗞'𝗦 𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗫 𝗪𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗨𝗠𝗣 𝟮𝟬𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗚𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗪𝗔𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗢 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗔𝗬 𝗗𝗔𝗜𝗟𝗬? "𝗦𝗨𝗥𝗘, 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗡𝗢𝗧?"

 "Money talks

But it don't sing and dance and it don't walk"

Neil Diamond

B

Bill Berg, John Young, Founders of "Save RGV"

Environmentalists may not recognize it just yet, but the battle to preserve Cameron County's pristine 8 mile beach at the small mouth of the Rio Grande River(Boca Chica) was lost when local politicos pocketed the chump change to look the other way as the LNG plants, SpaceX et al were allowed to have their way with our virgin coastline.

Now, Elon Musk's SpaceX wants this generation of elected suckers on the county teat to look the other way as he dumps 200,000 gallons of wastewater into the bay each day.

The quirky Musk is still calling in favors, reminding folks of his $10M gift with strings attached to the City of Brownsville.

Boca Chica Beach

I pulled my original story with the full Save RGV document of thousands of words as no one has the attention span to read it, but for the few environmental nerds in the blogosphere, here's the link: https://www.savergv.org/.../d1db5d...

The two men pictured at the top, Bill Berg and John Young, with a bushel basket of science and engineering degrees between them, the founders of Save RGV, were already octogenarians in 2015 when I took that photo. Younger folk have now taken up that fight.

Former Secretary of State and County Judge Carlos Cascos was among the group of signatories to the original agreement with SpaceX, but, in 2015, as he contemplated another run for judge, he typed this note:

"I have been suggesting for quite some time that I believed the contract that I entered into with SpaceX was not being adhered to. The County has been aware of these issues & have failed to enforce the contract. It is my understanding there are no amendments to the contract. Thank you to "Save RGV" & DA Luis Saenz for bringing this to the forefront."

While Cascos credits District Attorney Luis Saenz for "bringing this matter to the forefront," that happened only in response to the unrelenting pressure from Bill Berg and John Young of Save RGV.

Mary Helen Flores

Manning those same battlelines always was our friend, Mary Helen Flores and, of course, Patrick Anderson, both relentless advocates for environmental and Boca Chica preservation.

The recently retired Texas State Representative Eddie Lucio III briefly went over to the "other side," hiring on as the attorney for Valley Pipeline Inc., the natural gas supplier for the LNGs, but then, likely thinking of the political implications of drawing that nice salary, decided to resign.

Former Representative Eddie Lucio III