alt Hacker Newssomewhat topical video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dSjY4j7Ak
tl;dw -- louisiana has a ton of natural resources and wonderful harbors, but has allowed corporations to get away with almost anything without paying their fair share of taxes, cleaning up their waste, or generally being held accountable. And likely related, there is a long history of rampant corruption in the area. With sea levels rising and cancerous pollution filling densely populated areas, life in Louisiana has generally become very difficult :(
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Reminds me of Africa in terms of resource exploitation and lack of re-investment.
The book “Strangers in Their Own Land” covers similar ground.
> but has allowed corporations to get away with almost anything without paying their fair share of taxes
No doubt one of the more compelling reasons for SpaceX to do it there (along with their given reasoning).
I haven't had time to watch the video but my understanding was a lot of the Louisiana coast have big problems with rising sea levels and much of it in the process of falling underwater. Perhaps it's relatively trivial to reinforce the coast for the forseeable I don't know.
The plans for the site involve extracting significant amounts of natural gas to make methane to burn for the rocket fuel. If they hit the launch levels they suggest (thousands of launches per year), this is not a small amount of greenhouse gases they'll be emitting which of course helps accelerate melting of the ice caps and rising sea levels, which could threaten the very site they've built it on.