Before the $220 million came the tanker trucks

BROWNSVILLE — The $220 million that SpaceX put on the table last month for Brownsville’s water and sewer plants did not come out of nowhere. For three and a half years, the city-owned utility has been building toward it, one contract at a time, most of them decided behind closed doors and approved without a word of debate.

The Brownsville Public Utilities Board’s own records lay out the path. In March 2023, the utility signed a contract to haul drinking water by tanker truck from Brownsville to SpaceX’s launch site, 20 miles east. SpaceX paid a customer charge, a water charge and the cost of the hauling. A year later the two sides amended the deal: SpaceX could use its own tankers, take more water, and pay a new capacity charge. The water went to storage tanks at Starbase, and from there, the utility noted, “SpaceX is responsible for the distribution.”

By June 2025 the trucks were no longer enough. A presentation to the board that month put the problem plainly. The SpaceX site, it said, “is not located within an active CCN issued by the PUCT and does not receive sufficient retail water service.” SpaceX “requires potable water for its operations and the residents in the area.” A CCN is the state certificate that gives a utility the exclusive right, and the duty, to serve an area. Starbase has none, so no utility is obliged to serve it. Brownsville’s chose to.

The pipeline vote

On June 2, 2025, the board took “a proposed contract for the provision of water to SpaceX” into closed session, citing the exception that lets a public body consult its lawyer in private. When it came back out, it voted. The motion came from Gerardo Martinez, now the board’s chair, and was seconded by Al Villarreal. Dr. Joseph L. Hollmann abstained. The rest approved.

The terms, from the utility’s slides: SpaceX would become an inside-city commercial customer paying standard rates. It would “purchase or donate water rights for all volumes required.” It would pay standard impact fees. And it would “design, permit, fund, construct, own, and maintain a 12-inch water transmission pipeline from the point of delivery in Brownsville to Starbase, TX.” The utility, for its part, would spend impact-fee money to widen a stretch of its own line inside the city to 16 inches. SpaceX would not become a “retail public utility” and would not resell the water. The tanker contract would be phased out.

The minutes record no discussion.

“A large industrial customer”

The sewer deal followed the same road, with one difference: in public, the customer had no name.

On Jan. 12, 2026, after another closed session, the board voted to let the general manager “conclude negotiations with a large industrial customer, as discussed in closed session,” and bring back a signed sewer agreement for approval later. The motion was Villarreal’s, seconded by Martin Sarkis. Hollmann abstained again.

General Manager and CEO Marilyn D. Gilbert signed the agreement on Feb. 11, 2026. The board did not see the counterparty’s name in print until the March 11 packet, where a memo from Mark Dombroski of the Operations Office identified it: “Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX).” Metered sewer service inside the city, at published rates, with SpaceX paying the capital costs and impact fees.

The item was placed on the consent agenda, the part of the meeting where routine matters pass in one motion without individual discussion. It passed as item CA #12.

The utility has a standard phrase for these sessions. Its closed-meeting notices list “updates on contract negotiations related to large scale business development.” That language appears on agenda after agenda. SpaceX’s name does not.

Back behind the door

On Aug. 27 and again on Aug. 28, the board posted a closed-session item: “Consideration and Possible Action on a Proposal for an Agreement Regarding SpaceX,” presented by Paul Gonzalez. Public comment at both meetings was accepted “only in writing,” by email, an hour in advance.

The next day, Brownsville’s City Commission voted to release 444 acres of SpaceX land from the city. According to the Texas Tribune, SpaceX agreed to put $40 million into escrow and pay six more quarterly installments of $30 million, up to $220 million, toward a wastewater reclamation plant and an expansion of a water plant. Sheila McCorkle, a SpaceX vice president, told the commission the company was “not guaranteed any water by [the Brownsville Public Utility Board] through this agreement.”

Whether the Aug. 27–28 proposal is that agreement, the utility has not said. Its minutes for those meetings are not yet posted.

Who has been in the room

Board chair Gerardo Martinez; directors Al Villarreal, Martin Sarkis, Alex Najera and Daisy Zamora, the secretary-treasurer; and Dr. Joseph L. Hollmann, who abstained on both SpaceX votes and who also presides over the region’s desalination authority. General Manager Marilyn D. Gilbert. Mark Dombroski, who presented the water and sewer items. Paul Gonzalez, who now presents the closed-session items.

Why Hollmann abstains is not explained in any minutes. The utility’s records do not say.

What the records don’t show

The dollar terms of the June 2025 water contract. The volumes SpaceX may take. Which water rights it has bought or donated, and from whom. The text of the Feb. 11 sewer agreement. What the August proposal contains. Requests for each, under the Texas Public Information Act, have been drafted to the utility’s public information officer.

Sources

Brownsville Public Utilities Board packets and agendas: June 2, 2025 (pp. 350–360); Sept. 8, 2025 (June 2 minutes, p. 16); March 11, 2026 (pp. 146–147); April 13, 2026 (Jan. 12 minutes, p. 14); June 8, 2026 (March 11 minutes, p. 10); Aug. 27 and Aug. 28, 2026. Existing coverage: Texas Tribune, Aug. 31, 2026, Berenice Garcia.

Next: whose water it is — what SpaceX’s promise to “purchase or donate water rights” means on a river where farms and cities draw from the same account.