Draft Environmental Assessment South Texas Land Exchange

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service’s) Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge (LRGVNWR) is preparing this environmental assessment (EA) to analyze and disclose the potential environmental impacts of exchanging 712 acres of the LRGVNWR (lands proposed for divestiture) for 692 acres that are privately owned by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) (lands proposed for acquisition), located along State Highway (SH) 4 in the City of Starbase and adjacent to SH 100 in Laguna Vista in Cameron County, Texas (Figure 1-1).
Service approval of this land exchange would constitute a federal action subject to the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).1 Consequently, this EA has been written to analyze and disclose the potential environmental impacts of the land exchange (Proposed Action) and provide sufficient information for the Service to determine whether to prepare an environmental impact statement or a finding of no significant impact.