Jim Bradshaw: To boldly go to Pecan Island

By JIM BRADSHAW
Could Pecan Island become the next Cape Canaveral?
There is much speculation that the little cheniere known mostly for its hunting camps could become a busy base for shooting rockets into space instead of one for shooting ducks in the marsh.
Rumors abound that Elon Musk’s SpaceX company is negotiating for 136,000 acres of Vermilion Parish marshland just west of Intracoastal City and generally south of Pecan Island.
The land is currently owned by Exxon-Mobil, which bought the land in the 1950s to use principally as an oil-producing property.
The company said in 2022 that it planned to develop a big carbon storage facility there but has since apparently shelved the plan.
According to the rumors, Exxon-Mobil is willing to sell the land and SpaceX wants to expand its space operations to a site close to the Gulf.
Knowledgeable people say the site makes sense for SpaceX for several reasons.
First, the entire parcel is owned by one, also large, company that is used to making big deals.
Buying it would be a relatively simple transaction.
Second, it is on the Intracoastal Waterway, which connects Brownsville and Cape Canaveral, two SpaceX launching points.
It would be an ideal place to build and test rockets that could easily be barged to either of the launch sites.
That’s important because SpaceX’s reusable rockets are too big to be carried by truck or train; they have to be moved by barge from a test site to a launch pad.
They also have be barged to someplace they can be readied to use again after they are recovered from the Gulf.
Some people think SpaceX may want to use the site to launch satellites for its Starlink communications system.
The company owns about 9,500 of the 14,000 satellites orbiting Earth and has plans to launch thousands more as part of a plan for artificial intelligence data centers in space.
However it would be used, a SpaceX base would bring a huge change for a cheniere that didn’t even have electricity until the 1950s, and there is divided opinion over whether that would be a completely good thing.
State Sen. Bob Hesgens, who is from Gueydan, is one who thinks it could bring billions of dollars to the parish, including the millions needed to build a hurricane protection levee along the coast. He points to a recent press release from Brownsville that said, “Each launch draws thousands of spectators … but beyond the spectacle SpaceX’s presence is fueling serious momentum in jobs, education, tourism, and local spending.”
Realtor Jim Keaty recognized another view in a recent internet posting. “I love Acadiana’s economy and want to see it grow,” he wrote. “I also love the Sportsman’s Paradise we grew up in. These two things are about to be in real tension. If SpaceX comes, the prosperity will be enormous. … But the cost will be real too ─ a piece of the marsh, a piece of quiet, a piece of the way things have always been.”
The tension Keaty sees is not new to the island. It has been reflected in one way or another since the first settlers ventured into the marsh. For years Pecan Island had a reputation as a place where people lived because they wanted to be left alone.
In 1953, when 16 miles of shell road finally linked the island to the mainland, a newspaper article described the island as “one of the last frontiers of Louisiana.”
That article said, “It’s 450 residents lead quiet, peaceful lives, and are not bothered by any established law or interference from outsiders.”
Until then, the only way to get to Pecan Island was by boat from Abbeville, down the Vermilion River, through the Intracoastal Waterway, across White Lake, then through narrow canals to a private landing.
A mail boat that made deliveries three times a week linked the island to the world.
That 1953 report said that most of the people felt that the new road would “change the way of life considerably,” and that a good number of the residents were “somewhat reluctant to see the advent of heavy vehicular traffic, an influx of outsiders, new development, and other innovations of the modern civilization which will undoubtedly follow on the heels of the road completion.”
The article concluded, “With the project completion … Pecan Islanders will for the first time have a direct land link to Louisiana and the nation.”
Will a new venture link the little island not only to the nation but to the far reaches of space? Is that what it wants? Does it have any say?
All of those are open questions.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 705689.