Boca Chica
by Joey Tamayo
And the Bongodogs, 2001
Boca Boca Chica
Where the river meets the sea
Just the way you are
Forever may you be
Boca Boca Chica
What else can I say?
Just the way are
Forever may you stay
I know a man
They call him Borrado
Always in a hurry
Always apurado
On Sunday afternoon
He calls up his cuñado
They get a case of beer
And their fishing gear
and head off to...
Boca Boca Chica...
I know a woman
Her name is Lucila
She works all week long
At the maquila
On Sunday afternoon
She calls her friend Lupita
Y con las micheladas, ya preparadas
They head on down to
Boca Boca Chica...
By Juan Montoya
Unfortunately, the wishes expressed Joey Tamayo and the Bongodogs way back in 2001 have not come true.
Boca Chica has not only changed, but it has also effectively been blocked from public access - working-class and well-off alike - by the authority of our elected officials at the local and state level.
For the most part of June, the on-again, off-again testing has been the reason for the extended closures. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that crews were preparing for untethered hover tests that started in late April. Each time, Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. announced possible closures of Boca Chica Beach and State Highway 4 for the testing.
And currently, the judge's office announced in a public notice that closures are possible on June 20 and/or June 21 and/or June 22, as well as June 24 and/or June 25 and/or June 26 from 2 to 8 p.m. for space flight activities. The Brownsville Herald also reported that during the last week of May and each week of June the county has announced the testing had been rescheduled.
SpaceX first started testing Starship Hopper prototype at Boca Chica Beach in late March and those tests concluded April 3 with the Starship Hopper prototype making a fiery short tethered-hop after three weeks of periodic closures in the area.
News reports at the time said Treviño said the county was in uncharted territory as SpaceX also moved into new territory by testing its Starship Hopper prototype. That resulted,, it was reported, in a "learning curve" as technical challenges on SpaceX’s side required repeated closures of the area.
When SpaceX first came to town for the Federal Aviation Administration public hearing, they said they were planning 12 commercial satellite launches and that access to the beach would be limited to those launches. That has changed. Now no one is talking about the 12 launches or the 250 good-paying jobs the facility was supposed to employ.The "Hopper," SpaceX now claims, is a prototype of a craft that will eventually lift human beings to Mars from Boca Chica. And some county staffers say that not only has the mission of the Boca Chica site changed, but that there are fuels being utilized that are new to the industry. Without running water at the site, the potential for an accidental explosion has also increased.
For others, it is the limited access to the popular beach that worries them.
"I was going to take my RV to the beach in June and stay out there for a week," said a local resident. "Now I don't know when we'll be able to go there this summer. We are used to doing this every year."
And the presence of a Border patrol checkpoint discourages people without documentation to use the beach fearful they might be arrested and unable to return to the city.
If the economic attraction of 12 satellite launches no longer applies, experimental fuel materials increase the potential for accidents, and the projected tourism and employment dollars associated with those launches have disappeared, is it worth restricting access to the people's beach to please a billionaire?
The county's hotline for road closures is (956) 548-9541.