Seabed mining could harvest small metallic nodules on the seafloor. Photo: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, 2019 Southeastern U.S. Deep-sea Exploration
Many people think that the deep sea is a lifeless desert, but modern exploration has shown that there are vast coral gardens, hotspots of life around sea vents, and underwater mountains that are home to bustling ecosystems of unique organisms. Despite that, the Trump administration is promoting unproven, destructive seabed mining that would put all this at risk for questionable, short-term gains.
Many companies are trying to cash in on the Trump administration’s push to rapidly develop seabed mining technology. The administration has announced its intent to advance deep-sea or seabed mining. It is now doing so in virtually every U.S. region, and it’s moving quickly. Potential leasing threatens biodiversity in understudied deep-sea environments. We’ve never allowed commercial seabed mining for minerals in our federal waters before, so we can’t yet understand the long-term impacts on the ocean.
Marine Mining Companies are Pursuing Minerals
Over millions of years, minerals like nickel, copper, cobalt, iron, manganese, and rare earth elements accumulate into potato-like chunks of rock called “polymetallic nodules.” These metals may form crusts on the sides of underwater mountains or deposits along deep-sea vents. They can also be found as phosphorite rocks or as particles in the sand – if you’ve been to a beach and seen black streaks in the sand, those are a small sample of the minerals that companies are after.
These metals and minerals are used in many ways in our everyday lives. From our smartphones and computers to construction materials and drones, these materials are in increasing demand. Companies are interested in extracting these valuable minerals from the seafloor and selling them to industries that make defense systems, agricultural fertilizers, and other domestic manufacturing.
Wind turbines and electric cars also use these minerals, but deep-sea mining is not a clean energy solution. Developments in clean energy technology are already decreasing our reliance on the minerals. A new type of battery used in electric vehicles can be built without the minerals found in the deep-sea, and many leading technology, car, and battery corporations have pledged not to use minerals from the seabed.
Why is Deep-Sea Mining So Destructive?
Companies are trying to extract these metals using different techniques depending on the materials’ location and form. Potato-like nodules are vacuumed up by remotely operated vehicles that patrol the seabed. Mineral-rich sands are removed through “dredge mining,” which sucks up the top layers of the seafloor through pipes. Metal-rich crusts are excavated through strip-mining. These extractive mining techniques damage or altogether destroy the areas the equipment works in and have harmful, long-term consequences for ocean life.
Imagine shuffling your feet along the sand in the ocean and think about how murky the water becomes. Underwater mining has a similar effect as the equipment kicks up sediments on a larger scale and with longer-distance impacts. As the sand travels and settles far away, many organisms and habitats end up smothered by sediment, which affects critters’ abilities to feed, breathe, and move around.
The traveling sand significantly harms small organisms like plankton and copepods (small crustaceans) that make up the crucial base of the food chain. Without them, larger fish and whales lose their food sources. If underwater minerals mining is allowed in the Atlantic, New England’s fisheries could be severely impacted by the loss of essential fish habitats and disruptions to the food chain.
Now, as you continue imagining your feet in the sand, think about the tracks you’re leaving behind as you walk. Seabed mining similarly affects the ocean floor by leaving tracks after the equipment rips up the seafloor and destroys the habitats of the plants and animals that live there. Studies have found that a disrupted seabed can take over 50 years to recover after intensive activity and, sometimes, it never goes back to the way it was before.
Underwater mining would destroy organisms that can’t move out of the way of mining equipment like corals, sea stars, sponges, sea anemones, and urchins. And many habitats depend on hardened minerals to anchor themselves into the seabed, so removing nodules and crust layers would destroy the webs of life built on top of them. Unlike the very shallow waters where waves eventually smooth over your footprints, coastal seabed and deep-sea habitats can be permanently altered and take lifetimes to recover.
Mining Threatens Coastal Communities and Endangered Whales
Seabed mining doesn’t only happen in the deep sea. The government has received a request for information from a company seeking to mine in shallow Mid-Atlantic waters off Virginia’s coast. The proposed underwater mining area is close to the Virginia Barrier Islands and the Chesapeake Bay – areas where humans and animals alike play, fish, and enjoy all the ocean has to offer.
These waters are also an essential migratory corridor and year-round feeding area for endangered North Atlantic right whales. Mining could disrupt the species’ food supply, because clouds of sediment and released toxins threaten the tiny critters that these whales depend on for food. Underwater mining will require more boat traffic, which increases the risk of collisions with whales.
The noise pollution from mining operations could also interfere with mothers’ and babies’ ability to communicate. Studies have found that North Atlantic right whales already make louder calls just to be heard over human-generated noise, like ship engines, and that loud noises disrupt their feeding abilities. The exploration stages of deep-sea mining also require sonar to map the seabed and find commercially valuable areas.
Once mining begins, even more noise is created by drilling and dredging. The industrial ships used to collect minerals create constant noise while operating. This additional noise adds to an increasingly loud ocean, putting already vulnerable moms and babies at even greater risk.
With fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales left, and only around 70 potential mothers, North Atlantic right whales already face extreme risk from entanglements in fishing gear and collisions with ships. Underwater mining would only exacerbate the dangers these animals face.
The Virginia seabed mining proposal could have significant, negative impacts on endangered North Atlantic right whales and other migratory species that spend time in New England each year. It would harm fisheries, tourism, and other industries that rely on a thriving ocean. And if this request advances, it could open the door to mining in other locations along our Atlantic shores.
This is why CLF is fighting the proposal to open a leasing area in Virginia – to protect these valuable seabed habitats from untold, unknown consequences and safeguard the ecosystems that have existed for millions of years that we have yet to fully understand.
