During legislative testimony on Wednesday, panelists offered suggestions for strengthening a bill that would ban seabed mining in and around Guam waters.
Bill 253-38 was introduced in January, after the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management unveiled a plan to lease 35.5 million acres east of the Northern Marianas to deep-sea mining companies.
The companies want to extract critical minerals such as cobalt, nickel and copper that are used in electric vehicle batteries, high-tech electronics and defense systems.
About 65,000 comments were submitted on the plan – most of them opposed. The bureau then expanded the potential lease area to 69 million acres on both sides of the Marianas.
“So this legislation would ban mining, extraction and removal of minerals from the seabed in territorial marine waters,” bill author Sen. Therese Terlaje said. ”It will prohibit permits to be issued in connection with development or operation of facilities or infrastructures associated with mining, extraction or removal of minerals from the seabed.”
It would also restrict mining ships from using port facilities on Guam.
Department of Agriculture Director Chelsa Muna said the bill should also include civil or criminal penalties for violations. She said Hawaii and California have incorporated similar language in their bans, and the Department of Agriculture recommends a separate penalty for each day a violation continues. She also said the bill should designate an agency to enforce penalties.
She said incoming vessel operators should be required to assert compliance with laws before they are allowed to use the port. And she said the bill should explicitly ban staging, supply or logistics for ships engaged in seabed mining not just in territorial waters, but also adjacent federal and international waters.
“If the prohibition is limited to territorial waters, without addressing support functions, they could still technically use our ports, anchorages and near-shore waters to stage, refill, change crew or resupply vessels conducting mining operations in federal waters that are adjacent to our waters,” she said.
Muna said the federal government appears to be listening to the mining industry rather than residents.
“All it took was interest from other private companies for BOEM to expand their area to nearly double,” she said. “Meanwhile, the people of Guam and the people of all the islands in the Pacific that are against these actions, our voices are not heard at all when it comes to our objections to this process.”
Monaeka Flores of Protehi Guahan said Guam lawmakers should collaborate with the legislators in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, because if mining ships are banned from using Guam ports, “they’re going to look at Saipan next.”
She also said the Port Authority and Guam Customs and Quarantine should have procedures for identifying mining equipment, and she noted that the region is facing overlapping pressures from increased military activity as well as potential seabed mining.
“We're talking about the disruption of the very base of the whole food chain of the ocean. And so this is going to affect our food security as well,” she said.
Terlaje said she was encouraged by the work of agencies, organizations and individuals concerned about the potential impact of seabed mining.
“This is really the strength of our community, and we have to be more creative, I think, than we have ever been, because they are coming faster than they have ever come against our resources,” she said. “They are not proposing a single dime to come to us from this.”
