Miles below the ocean’s surface, metallic nodules the size of potatoes contain critical minerals needed to power computers, phones, electric vehicles, medical devices, solar panels, satellites and military equipment.
The minerals being sought – primarily cobalt, copper and nickel - are essential for high tech devices and green energy. Most land-based sources of these metals are either fraught with political problems for the United States or subject to supply chain disruption.
So the U.S., like many other countries, is looking to the deep sea, where hydrothermal vents, seamount crusts and manganese nodules could provide valuable resources.
One of the locations being considered for mining is along the Marianas Trench, extending from east of the Northern Islands in the CNMI to a southern boundary that’s equidistant between Guam and Rota. The closest point to Saipan is about 128 miles.
The federal government has asked people to weigh in on the plan.
Last week, the environmental group Tano, Tasi yan Todu, along with the Northern Marianas College, held a public webinar featuring University of Hawaii Oceanography Professor Jeffrey Drazen.
Drazen described deep-sea mining as a “potential” industry.
“No commercial mining is occurring today,” he said. “There have been a number of test mining activities, but there's no commercial-scale exploitation right now.”
Although the idea of extracting metals from the ocean floor isn’t new, the demand for critical minerals has intensified in recent years.
In April, Trump issued an executive order stating that the United States was facing “unprecedented economic and national security challenges” in securing critical minerals that weren’t controlled by foreign adversaries. He said offshore seabed areas were key to strengthening the economy and securing the energy future.
Drazen said cobalt, copper and nickel are especially important.
“These are essential metals for lithium-ion batteries, which our society needs if we are to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels,” he said. “If you're trying to electrify your transportation network and create electric cars, you need a whole lot more lithium-ion batteries than we're currently using in all our portable electronic devices like cell phones and laptops.”
Drazen said it’s important to note that all of the metals can be found on land.
“They are becoming somewhat harder to access, lower ore grades and various deposits, or they have challenging political situations surrounding them,” he said. “So for instance, a lot of the nickel that is refined in the world is refined in China. And cobalt, for instance, is frequently mined in in Africa, in (Democratic Republic of) Congo, and they're, unfortunately, they're using 12-year-old kids to dig it out of the ground with their hands.”
Drazen said there are still many unknowns about how mining will affect fish, including the ones we eat.
“Fisheries are often found at sea mounts, both in the water column - tunas, swordfish and such, aggregate over these sea mounts - and there are sea floor fisheries as well, and so there is the potential for mining to intersect with this other industry that we need to be aware of,” he said.
After toxic metals are extracted in the mining process, waste material – the water, sediment and fragments of these metals - would be released back into the sea.
“It's possible that deep-sea mining could introduce metals into food webs and contaminate our seafood supply, and they make it all the way up to the top predators we eat,” Drazen said.
Nodule mining on the sea floor would involve large, heavy collector vehicles that remove the manganese nodules and suck up the top few inches of sediment.
“So this will happen in swaths that are probably bigger than 5 meters across. That will remove the nodule habitat," he said. "It will kill most of the infauna, the animals that live in the mud, in the sediments, because they will be shot through this machine or up a pipe to a surface ship and the tank treads. The treaded component of this vehicle also compacts the sediments and alters their geochemistry.”
The collectors also create a plume of sediment that could travel more than 6 miles away, smothering small sea creatures as it settles.
The floor of the deep ocean is slow to recover from disturbances. Drazen showed a photo of vehicle tracks in the mud that appeared to be fresh. They were made 26 years before the photo was taken.
Drazen said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is asking the public to weigh in before a decision is made on issuing leases.
“They're interested in the public response. Is there support? Is there not support? It's probably mixed, I'm guessing. And what do people see as major concerns, either positive or negative? So it's a scoping exercise right now,” Drazen said.
The deadline for submitting comments on the website is 11:59 p.m. eastern time Friday, or 3 p.m. Saturday CHamoru Standard time.
As of Monday, 224 comments had been submitted.
If you want to comment
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management asks that comments be as specific and detailed as possible. The agency wants to hear about:
- Geological conditions, archaeological resources, or potential hazards on the seabed in and around the area.
- Multiple uses in and around the area, including shipping, navigation, and recreation.
- Socioeconomic, biological, and environmental information in and around the area; potential impacts of leasing and mining activities to these resources; and methods to eliminate, mitigate, and monitor for impacts.
- Information regarding commercial, Indigenous, and recreational fisheries, including but not limited to, the use of the areas, the fishing gear types used, seasonal use, and recommendations for reducing use conflicts.
- Relative environmental sensitivity and marine productivity in and around the area.
- Information on the preliminary activities necessary to develop comprehensive delineation, testing, or mining plans, particularly the types of any necessary surveys and associated equipment.
- Information on the types of activities associated with delineation, testing, or mining of minerals.
- Information concerning the relationship between OCS mineral leasing and the CNMI Coastal Zone Management Program.
- Information related to Indigenous people in the region and interactions with potential mining activities, such as potential impacts to Chamorro and Carolinian culture, the Indigenous ways of life; practices; lands; resources; ancestral lands; sacred sites, including sites that are submerged; and access to traditional areas of cultural or religious importance on federally-managed lands and waters.
- Socioeconomic information for communities potentially affected by mineral leasing in and around the area, including community profiles, vulnerability, and resiliency data. The bureau is also looking for comments on how best to meaningfully engage with these communities.
- Information from the deep-sea mining industry on the considerations for mineral development in deep waters, such as water depth, seafloor conditions, deep-sea operations, mineral extraction feasibility, and costs.
- Information on what a reasonable and fair rental rate would be for a minerals lease, royalty rates and schedules, bid deposits, minimum bid levels and appropriate lease area size.
