As Beal Aerospace’s efforts to establish itself on St. Croix encounter legal challenges, the company continues to move forward with plans to build a $50 million rocket launch facility in Guyana.
Although the British Broadcasting Company has reported that the Guyana Human Rights Association and the opposition People’s National Congress are questioning the Guyanese government’s negotiations with Beal, Wade Gates, the company’s director of corporate communications, said a deal is near.
Beal is looking to purchase, lease and gain easement on approximately 100,000 acres of land in Guyana’s northwest for the launch facility. The launch area would comprise approximately 26,000 acres and be surrounded by a buffer zone of more than 75,000 acres.
Guyanese critics of the proposed deal claim the government hasn’t opened the talks to the public while others are concerned about the project’s impact on Amerindian people living in the area.
But Gates said he and other company officials have traveled to the interior to meet with the Amerindian tribes.
"The government has been very forthright with everyone," Gates said.
"There are a few people who may have wished they were involved in the day-to-day negotiations, but we just can’t do it."
According to the Caribbean News Agency, Guyana’s president, Bharrat Jagedo, said details of the deal will be made public at the end of negotiations.
Meanwhile, Beal’s proposed world headquarters and rocket assembly facility on St. Croix is on hold because of a lawsuit. A Territorial Court judge will make a decision on Friday to either grant opponents of Beal a permanent injunction or lift a temporary restraining order on the project.
