Public land users and lovers one and all jumped for joy when that “Big Beautiful Bill” backed off on opening up our public lands to everything from Walmarts and Targets to oil fields and stone quarries—you name it—across millions of acres. Now, it’s a different day, and a different crisis.
While the provision of those quarter-billion square miles of public lands to the deepest and greasiest pockets to raise their hands was etched out of the bill, our fearless leader had not only the United States’ precious seafloor but even that beneath international waters up his sleeve. In fact, the President had already issued an executive order requiring the Secretary of Commerce to “expedite the process for reviewing and issuing seabed mineral exploration licenses and commercial recovery permits in areas beyond national jurisdiction under the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act (30 U.S.C. 1401 et seq.), consistent with applicable law.”
Prompted by the first federal waters lease proposal for deep sea mining in several decades, by Impossible Metals Inc., which is vying for access to an area off American Samoa, his slickness, POTUS, figures, ‘Hey, we’ve got more seabed right here in the lower 48, Hawaii, and Alaska, so why not?’ And, while we’re at it, why don’t we offer up seabed beneath international waters, that which isn’t even ours to sign away in the first place?
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Why not could be answered with as many recent-history anecdotes as you’d like, but we’ve not even scratched the surface of what can happen. “Deep-sea mining would wreak enormous damage,” Dr. Sylvia Earle, the former NOAA Chief Scientist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence reverentially known as “Her Deepness,” co-wrote in a Time magazine op-ed. “Massive machines digging, dredging, and vacuuming up the ocean floor would create huge sediment plumes deep in the ocean that will drift on currents, smothering marine life, including species not yet discovered. Surface-level processing ships would dump tailings—the waste materials left after the target mineral is extracted from ore—back into the ocean, killing plant and animal life as it drifts through the water column, releasing acidic and toxic sediment hazardous to fish and those who consume it.” And that’s to say nothing of the untold carbon-capture and -sequestration imbalance that could unfold from the seafloor up. But why listen to our nation’s foremost expertise? Foolish is as foolish does.
Abroad, an increasingly livid contingent of the 169 nations that make up the International Seabed Authority (ISA) are conveniently conjoining in Kingston, Jamaica at this very moment, loading for bear at the suggestion that the United States might get away with offering up international seabed.
Ever taking the proactive measure, The Surfrider Foundation’s Australia chapter just announced that, along with a coalition of various respective local organizations, is leading a “global activation” to speak out against harmful deep-sea mining.
The series of protests, which will take place this Sunday, July 20, involves 30 synchronized paddle outs across 19 countries and counting to “raise awareness about the risks and harm of deep-sea mining on marine ecosystems, communities, economies, and cultural heritage.” Events will be held in Argentina, Australia, the Cook Islands, Hawaii, Indonesia, Ireland, Jamaica, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, the mainland U.S., and well beyond.
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Visit Surfrider Australia’s homepage for the event, entitled A Day for the Deep: Help stop destructive deep sea mining before it starts! to register for an event near you.