Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / American Samoa Said No to Deep-Sea Mining. The US Government Doubled The Area

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American Samoa Said No to Deep-Sea Mining. The US Government Doubled The Area · How To Protect The Ocean

• 0:00
  How would you feel if you lived on an island in the Pacific and the federal
• 0:05
  government, the federal US government came out and said, "Hey, you know what?
• 0:08
  There's a company that's interested in doing deep sea mining in and
• 0:10
  around your island, and they would like to know if you're okay with it.
• 0:13
  We have to open up this public comment period.
• 0:15
  We'll call it a Request For Information, an RFI, and you put in your comment,
• 0:18
  you let me know if you like it or not." And then 80 to 98% after
• 0:22
  30 days said, "Hey, you know what?
• 0:23
  We don't want this at all.
• 0:24
  In fact, our governor from two years ago said we're gonna put
• 0:28
  a moratorium on deep sea mining.
• 0:30
  So no, we don't want this actually at all And then they said, "Yeah,
• 0:34
  we're actually gonna increase the area, almost double the area size,
• 0:38
  and then we're just gonna put out the lease, like the lease sale anyway."
• 0:42
  How would you feel about that?
• 0:44
  That's exactly what's happening to the American Samoa right
• 0:46
  now, and they are not happy.
• 0:48
  In fact, a lot of people aren't happy in and around the US and
• 0:52
  around the world that this deep-sea mining is going to happen.
• 0:54
  And in this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, we're gonna be talking
• 0:58
  about everything that went on, the whole situation, the overview, and then
• 1:01
  we're gonna find out all the details.
• 1:03
  This is gonna be an interesting episode, so you don't wanna miss it.
• 1:06
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• 1:08
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• 1:11
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• 1:13
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  that out, and make some money on this as I work really hard on this kind of stuff.
• 1:51
  Anyway, let's talk about the situation.
• 1:52
  Here's the overview.
• 1:53
  The US government is moving toward the world's first commercial deep-sea mining
• 1:58
  lease sale located just off in the federal waters off the coast of American Samoa.
• 2:02
  So the agency in charge that's doing this is the Marine
• 2:05
  Minerals Administration, the MMA.
• 2:08
  Kinda interesting acronym, especially with martial arts and
• 2:10
  the UFC in being such an important role in the government these days.
• 2:13
  But it's a newly formed agency which merges the Bureau of Ocean Energy
• 2:17
  Management, BOEM, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement,
• 2:21
  which I think is, again, very interesting because we don't know what the problem
• 2:24
  is gonna be with the environment, which we'll talk about later on in the show.
• 2:28
  So on July 16th, 2026, MMA and BOEM published a proposed leasing notice,
• 2:34
  a PLN, for the American Samoa Outer Continental Shelf mineral lease sale.
• 2:38
  The lease sale itself is projected to go August 2026 and will be live-streamed
• 2:43
  rather than open to the public.
• 2:45
  So I think that's interesting.
• 2:46
  It's not gonna be open to anybody who wants to do it, it's gonna be
• 2:48
  just be open to that area or just the upstream, whoever gets access to it,
• 2:52
  I assume it's not open to the public.
• 2:54
  The area of auction is gonna be the roughly the size of 33 million
• 2:58
  acres of sea floor, roughly 51,560 square miles for my American friends.
• 3:03
  The target mineral is polymetallic nodules, which is like a potato-shaped
• 3:07
  rock on the sea floor containing nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and other
• 3:12
  critical minerals used in EV batteries and electronics, which is, as you
• 3:16
  know probably by now, that critical minerals are very in style these days.
• 3:21
  People need it for a lot of different things, you know, electronics,
• 3:24
  circuits and all that kind of stuff.
• 3:26
  The proposed mining area sits adjacent to the Rose Atoll Marine National
• 3:30
  Monument and borders the National Marine Sanctuary of the American Samoa,
• 3:33
  both protected for unique biodiversity.
• 3:35
  So again, there's these protected areas that are around the area
• 3:39
  that's gonna be up for lease.
• 3:40
  That could go wrong.
• 3:41
  If this situation goes wrong, which probably will, let's be honest, we
• 3:44
  don't know what we're doing to the deep sea if we start mining the deep sea.
• 3:49
  We have no idea the processes, we have no idea what's going to happen, and now
• 3:53
  you have two protected areas, monuments, that are around there that could be
• 3:57
  in danger if something goes wrong.
• 3:58
  So that's something to think about.
• 4:00
  This part of the broader federal push, the MMA has also proposed lease
• 4:04
  sales off the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Alaska.
• 4:09
  I'll be honest, this is very frustrating.
• 4:10
  Both the American Samoa and Mariana Islands had a huge majority against
• 4:15
  wanting to do deep sea mining, and then this is what happens.
• 4:18
  This is a really big slap in the face to the people of CNMI, the
• 4:23
  Northern Mariana Islands, and of course, the American Samoa.
• 4:26
  So let's talk about how we got there and looking at the RFI process, or
• 4:30
  Request for Information process.
• 4:31
  So the process started when a California-based company, Impossible
• 4:35
  Metals, formally asked BOEM in April 2025 to open a leasing process for
• 4:40
  nodules off of the American Samoa.
• 4:42
  BOEM responded by publishing a request for information and interest, so RFI, in
• 4:47
  the Federal Register on June 16th, 2025.
• 4:50
  This kicked off a 30-day public comment period closing August 2025.
• 4:55
  On June 23rd, 2025, American Samoa's government leaders, including the
• 4:59
  governor, legislature, and the territory's congressional delegate, issued a unified
• 5:04
  statement opposing the leasing process.
• 5:06
  This built on a moratorium of American Samoa governor put in place in July
• 5:11
  2024, banning mining extraction or exploration activity in the local waters.
• 5:16
  Though this only covers the three nautical miles offshore, federal waters go beyond
• 5:20
  that outside the territory's control.
• 5:22
  You can ban the deep sea mining from happening within three
• 5:25
  nautical miles, which probably wouldn't have happened anyway.
• 5:27
  But beyond that is federal water, so they can do whatever they want, unfortunately,
• 5:30
  like beyond that in the federal waters.
• 5:32
  So here's the comment results.
• 5:33
  So seventy-five thousand to seventy-six thousand comments were
• 5:36
  submitted to the RFI comment period.
• 5:37
  A reported opposition ranges from roughly from eighty percent to
• 5:40
  ninety-eight percent, depending on the source of the end analysis, which
• 5:43
  is still quite a majority of people.
• 5:45
  BOEM's own summary of the comment period acknowledged that most
• 5:48
  commenters cited America and Samoa's local moratorium and opposed leasing.
• 5:52
  So it was all opposition.
• 5:54
  Community members, environmental groups like Greenpeace, Earthjustice, NRDC,
• 5:58
  and neighboring territories like Guams and CNMI, the Commonwealth Northern
• 6:02
  Mariana Islands, have all pointed to the same figure as evidence that the
• 6:06
  process disregarded the public will.
• 6:08
  Despite this, BOEM proceeded to the next stage, identifying the lease area.
• 6:12
  Now, the area, as I mentioned before, didn't shrink after the RFI process.
• 6:17
  It actually expanded.
• 6:18
  So despite the opposition, the area identified grew from
• 6:22
  about eighteen million acres to thirty-three million acres.
• 6:26
  So some of the drivers that were cited was the US Geological Survey
• 6:29
  mapping priorities and industry proposals for additional acreage.
• 6:33
  BOEM has acknowledged it does not have a clear framework showing how
• 6:36
  community opposition was wedged against industry's interests in this decision.
• 6:41
  So June 2025, the RFI was published, 18 million acres.
• 6:45
  August 2025, comment period closes 75,000 plus comments,
• 6:49
  majority opposed, so 80 to 98%.
• 6:52
  November 2025, BOEM announces RFI process completed.
• 6:56
  And then on March 26th, BOEM releases analysis of comments areas
• 6:59
  like the area already growing.
• 7:01
  And then on July 16th, 2026, proposed leasing notice published
• 7:04
  area now 33 million acres.
• 7:07
  In August 2026, which is projected, the lease sale will take place So
• 7:11
  some of the companies involved, as I mentioned, Impossible Metals, they're
• 7:14
  California, San Jose-based startup.
• 7:15
  The company that filed the original request that started this process,
• 7:19
  developing an AI-guided robotic vehicle designed to selectively pick nodules
• 7:23
  while avoiding visible marine life.
• 7:26
  Signed a memorandum of understanding with the American Samoa Economic Development
• 7:30
  Council in late 2023 to process nodules locally into battery-grade metals and
• 7:36
  use the Pago Pago Port infrastructure.
• 7:38
  The Metals Company widely seen as the deep sea mining industry's frontrunner
• 7:42
  globally, has tested equipment at scale, hauled up to three thousand
• 7:45
  metric tons of nodules in a 2002 trial in the Clarion-Clipperton
• 7:49
  Zone, which is in the Pacific.
• 7:50
  It's a very popular deep sea zone which has been the prize, I
• 7:53
  guess, for these types of nodules.
• 7:55
  And then several smaller or newer entrants have also expressed interest, including
• 7:59
  American Metal Resources, CX Deep Sea Minerals Corp., and a company that was
• 8:04
  planning to rename itself Eco Minerals.
• 8:06
  Very surprising name.
• 8:08
  Notably, one report describes a firm that got its start hunting sunken treasure in
• 8:12
  a startup that grew out of an effort to locate Amelia Earhart's lost plane, now
• 8:16
  pivoting into seabed mining collection.
• 8:18
  I guess they have the infrastructure to do it.
• 8:20
  So the one thing we haven't talked about, we talked about this whole process.
• 8:22
  We talked about how people were against it because they didn't want it, because
• 8:25
  they cited a lot of times the governor's moratorium on the deep sea mining.
• 8:29
  But there are environmental consequences that scientists
• 8:32
  are really worried about it.
• 8:33
  A 2025 Nature Ecology and Evolution study on the actual industrial-scale test in
• 8:38
  the Pacific found macrofaunal seafloor animals' density dropped thirty-seven
• 8:42
  percent directly within like mining tracts, with a thirty-two percent
• 8:46
  reduction in species richness just two months after the single test mining pass.
• 8:50
  So imagine if that happened a lot in that area.
• 8:53
  The effects could be devastating.
• 8:55
  A separate 2025 Nature study looking at a 1970s test mining site found
• 8:59
  that four decades later, biological impacts in many groups of organisms
• 9:03
  were still detectable, though some species had begun to reestablish.
• 9:07
  It's still not that great.
• 9:09
  We still see the effects four decades later.
• 9:11
  Now, a 2025 Frontiers in Marine Science review describes the
• 9:14
  anticipated impacts as long-lasting and potentially irreversible.
• 9:17
  Removal of seafloor substrate that supports marine life, sediment plumes
• 9:21
  that can disperse far beyond the mining site, toxic metals release, and of
• 9:25
  course, a noise and light pollution from mining equipment And then field
• 9:29
  simulation research in the Western Pacific found that sediment distribution
• 9:33
  from mining vehicles were 30 times greater than the natural wave or
• 9:37
  current disturbance, with turbidity effects and reduced dissolved oxygen
• 9:41
  persistent for hours after a single pass.
• 9:44
  A widely cited estimate for every ton of nodules mined, 2.5 to 5.5
• 9:50
  tons of sediment gets disturbed and suspended in the water column.
• 9:54
  I wanna talk a little bit as you kinda digest that, about what these
• 9:57
  structures are gonna look like.
• 9:59
  Dr. Andrew Thaler, who's been on the podcast a number of times,
• 10:01
  kind of put it, last time he was on, put it into perspective.
• 10:04
  It is not just gonna be vehicles on the ground just taking mines and then
• 10:07
  floating back up and going into it.
• 10:09
  There's gonna be a tube that goes from the surface of the boat, and
• 10:12
  then down to these vehicles where everything's being mined.
• 10:15
  And essentially, it's going to carry the nodules all the way
• 10:19
  from the sea floor all the way up.
• 10:21
  So there's gonna be all this tube that goes thousands of meters in the water
• 10:26
  column all the way up to the surface.
• 10:27
  And then of course, on the surface, it's gonna be like a small city for
• 10:30
  each of these different outfits.
• 10:31
  Now, what that says is that the disturbance is not just gonna
• 10:34
  be on the ground, it's gonna be all throughout the water column.
• 10:37
  We have no idea how it's gonna affect migration routes.
• 10:39
  We have no idea how it's going to affect just natural fish and seabird and
• 10:43
  other sort of animals and organisms sort of behavior around these structures.
• 10:47
  We have no idea if these structures can rip or sediment plumes can
• 10:50
  go out from those if it leaks.
• 10:52
  Like think about like we can't even do a pipeline properly.
• 10:54
  Imagine a tube that has to face all this different pressure from
• 10:58
  the surface all the way down to the bottom, how that's gonna work.
• 11:00
  It's just gonna be a problem all around.
• 11:03
  And I want you to kinda understand this because a lot of times we see pictures
• 11:07
  of things on the bottom of the ground.
• 11:08
  They're just on the surface, so it's like a vacuum, but there's still
• 11:11
  a lot of sediment on the ground.
• 11:12
  There's sand and all these different types of things.
• 11:14
  And if that goes up in the air, we have no idea the effects of
• 11:18
  what's gonna happen around it.
• 11:19
  As anybody who has a marine aquarium or even a freshwater aquarium, when sediment
• 11:24
  is disturbed, all the stuff that like the detritus, like all the poo and all
• 11:28
  that kind of stuff that's on the ground turns into nitrates and ammonia nitrates.
• 11:33
  When that bottom gets disturbed and it comes all up, that could
• 11:35
  be like an ammonia bomb is what we call in the aquarium industry.
• 11:39
  And so if we see this on a larger scale, this could be a big problem that I don't
• 11:42
  know I've never seen really anything looking at that, but that's a big problem.
• 11:46
  Plus, we have all these macrofauna and microfauna that are in the sediment, that
• 11:50
  are in the water column, and we have no idea the effect that's gonna happen.
• 11:53
  We know some of it 'cause I've just read some of the stuff off of you of some of
• 11:55
  the studies, but it's, really not good.
• 11:57
  Some of the socioeconomic consequences that we're talking about, a 2023 study
• 12:01
  in the NPJ Ocean Sustainability found deep seabed mining lacks social legitimacy,
• 12:07
  noting Pacific fisheries provide revenue, nutrition, employment, and
• 12:11
  livelihoods for island communities that are already stressed by climate impacts.
• 12:14
  So the same study flagged the tuna fisheries as a specific concern since they
• 12:18
  can overlap with proposed mining areas and tuna access fees account for up to
• 12:22
  eighty-four percent of the GDP for some tuna-dependent Pacific Island states.
• 12:26
  A 2025 Nature commentary from Pacific Island leaders warn that sediment plumes
• 12:30
  can drift across hundreds of kilometers for decades, potentially diminishing
• 12:35
  catch rates, contaminating seafood, and crossing national jurisdiction lines.
• 12:39
  A 2021 Frontiers in Marine Science paper on traditional Pacific seabed
• 12:43
  resource management stresses that the ocean is not just an economic
• 12:47
  resource for Pacific communities, but central to cultural identity, social
• 12:51
  relations, and a worldview, and argues current regulatory frameworks
• 12:55
  don't account for that connection.
• 12:57
  A review cited by the Ocean Foundation covering more than 250 peer-reviewed
• 13:01
  articles concluded that social and cultural impacts on Pacific communities
• 13:05
  remain largely unknown, while the economic benefits of mining remained questionable.
• 13:10
  This is one of the situations that we talk about in conservation when
• 13:14
  indigenous voices are not heard.
• 13:17
  Indigenous Pacific Islanders have had a history with colonialism
• 13:21
  and being affected by colonialism.
• 13:23
  And because they don't really have a say in these types of situations.
• 13:28
  They didn't really have much of a say when they opened up the Pacific
• 13:31
  monuments, like the sanctuaries, and when industrial fleets wanted to fish it again.
• 13:37
  They didn't really have a say when they put it in.
• 13:38
  They had some say, like they were consulted, but they don't have a
• 13:41
  final say because they're a territory.
• 13:44
  The thing is that this impacts their lives.
• 13:47
  All the consequences impact their lives, and then the fruits of the labor
• 13:50
  that are actually used are just gonna get exported outside their territory.
• 13:55
  I talked a, number of episodes ago about how indigenous people
• 13:58
  in Canada are starting to take ownership of a lot of the major
• 14:02
  projects that are happening in Canada.
• 14:04
  And they're taking ownership for a number of different reasons.
• 14:07
  Not only because they should benefit on the economic side, which will help benefit
• 14:11
  on their social side for the revenue that's generated on their land, 'cause
• 14:15
  a lot of times it crosses their land.
• 14:17
  But they also have a say in the environmental processes that are
• 14:20
  looked after from a regulatory process.
• 14:22
  They wanna make sure it is part of their culture, for many indigenous
• 14:26
  people, not only in Canada, but all over the world, to ensure that they
• 14:29
  are living in harmony with nature.
• 14:31
  And if they don't live in harmony with nature, that's a problem.
• 14:34
  That affects their livelihood.
• 14:36
  The CNMI and a lot of other communities recently just had their
• 14:40
  second super typhoon in 90 days.
• 14:43
  When I talked to Angelo Villagomez, who's from the CNMI, and now lives
• 14:47
  in Washington, DC, he commented and he said five years ago, before the second
• 14:51
  to last super typhoon in May, five years ago when another super typhoon
• 14:54
  came in, it took out all the schools.
• 14:56
  They hadn't rebuilt the schools yet.
• 14:57
  That was in 2019.
• 14:59
  And now they're getting another one.
• 15:01
  They got another one in May and another one just recently in
• 15:03
  beginning of July, end of June.
• 15:05
  These are the people who pay the consequences of climate change, of deep
• 15:09
  sea mining, of mismanaged fisheries, and they are given opportunity to have
• 15:14
  a say, but nobody listens to them.
• 15:16
  So this deep-rooted colonialism is affecting unfortunately, the way these
• 15:21
  indigenous people are gonna live.
• 15:23
  It's super frustrating to have to watch that over and over and over again.
• 15:26
  I can't even imagine just living it.
• 15:27
  And so this is again, just another example of what this government
• 15:31
  thinks of their indigenous people.
• 15:34
  They're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
• 15:35
  Who cares about them?
• 15:36
  That's the feeling that everybody is getting from this process.
• 15:39
  And like, do the American Samoans actually want this?
• 15:42
  No.
• 15:43
  Based on every available public measure of public sentiment
• 15:46
  so far, they don't want it.
• 15:47
  The American Samoas governor, territorial legislature, and congressional delegate
• 15:51
  have all publicly and formally opposed deep-sea mining in the territorial waters.
• 15:56
  Delegate Redwagan has been quoted, "As it stands, the people of American Samoa are
• 16:01
  opposed to deep-sea mining in and around the territory." I watched a live broadcast
• 16:06
  from a post-congressional hearing, where representatives from CNMI, from Guam,
• 16:11
  and from American Samoa came up and said, "We've had no say in the process.
• 16:15
  We have no benefit in the process.
• 16:17
  Why would we allow this to happen?" They have not been consulted
• 16:20
  other than the RFI, and even then they're not even listened to.
• 16:23
  American Samoa's own government issued a moratorium in July 2024 banning mining
• 16:28
  extraction exploration activity within roughly three miles of the islands, a
• 16:31
  limit on the territory's own jurisdiction.
• 16:34
  And the community groups like Fa'aso America Samoa have criticized the
• 16:38
  federal government for what they describe as fast-tracking the lease
• 16:41
  sale while ignoring the voices of the very people whose waters, traditions,
• 16:45
  and livelihoods are on the line.
• 16:47
  One important nuance, the American Samoa Economic Development Council, a
• 16:51
  territorial economic development body, signed an MOU with Impossible Metals in
• 16:55
  late 2023 and has separately pursued an international seabed authority
• 16:59
  license application framing mining as a source of jobs and economic growth.
• 17:03
  Its executive director, John Wasco, has spoken in support of the industry.
• 17:07
  This puts the Economic Development Council public's position at odds with
• 17:10
  the territory's elected government and legislature, and apparently the public.
• 17:14
  Here's the situation as Angelo put it into perspective.
• 17:17
  A lot of the places, like CNMI, American Samoa, not much, as much Guam, but the
• 17:21
  other two, they struggle economically.
• 17:24
  There's not a lot of industry, there's not a lot of stuff going on.
• 17:27
  And so when opportunities like this come along, they're short-lived, the benefits
• 17:32
  may not be great in the long term.
• 17:34
  But because the economic situation that they're in, sometimes there are people
• 17:37
  who are gonna wanna have it because they think it's gonna help build jobs,
• 17:41
  it's gonna help with, people who go out there are gonna have to stay on
• 17:44
  the island, like in the hotels and stuff like that before they can go
• 17:47
  offshore, all these types of things.
• 17:48
  So there's gonna be more people there, but will it actually
• 17:50
  help the American Samoan people?
• 17:52
  Like, that's really what it comes down.
• 17:54
  So opposition is not universal.
• 17:56
  There is a difference between the elected government and general
• 17:58
  public opposition, and the more pro-development stance of the council
• 18:02
  and some industry-aligned local voices.
• 18:04
  So, the bottom line, though, that you really need to know, this is
• 18:06
  on track to be the first commercial deep sea mining operation anywhere
• 18:09
  in the world, not hypothetical that we've seen before, but actively
• 18:13
  moving through the federal process.
• 18:14
  The lease sale is currently projected for August 2026, with the governor of
• 18:18
  American Samoa given sixty days to comment once the leasing notice is finalized.
• 18:23
  The gap between what the public said, an overwhelming opposition, and what
• 18:27
  the government did, expanding the mining area, is a central tension of this story.
• 18:32
  And worth flagging for you guys, for you listeners, you wanna verify
• 18:36
  all these stats, and you wanna make sure that everything's good when
• 18:38
  you look into this kind of thing.
• 18:39
  There are people and there are organization that are looking out
• 18:42
  for the American Samoan people.
• 18:43
  So look out for ways to sign petitions if you are against this,
• 18:47
  ways to support organizations like EarthJustice, Greenpeace, NRDC.
• 18:51
  These are the organizations that are gonna take the government to court based
• 18:54
  on the RFI, all this kind of stuff.
• 18:56
  And of course, if you really wanna take place, if you live in the US,
• 18:59
  vote, vote, vote for these midterms.
• 19:02
  And if you want this to be flipped, you wanna flip the House and the
• 19:05
  Senate or either or both because this is gonna matter in the future.
• 19:09
  And it's only the government that can really stop this, and
• 19:12
  the people need to be heard.
• 19:13
  So if you wanna be heard, you can follow organizations like Future
• 19:16
  Swell, Greenpeace, NRDC, and Earth Justice to be able to find out what's
• 19:21
  happening and how you can help.
• 19:22
  That's it for the episode today.
• 19:24
  Unfortunately, a lot of the things that I talked about today is disappointing.
• 19:27
  I mean, unfortunately, this is happening, especially in this 2026 United States.
• 19:31
  And people are not on the forefront of the minds of this government administration.
• 19:36
  It's just too bad.
• 19:37
  It's something that we have to look out for and it's something
• 19:38
  that we need to be on track.
• 19:40
  And this is why we tell you on here, on this How to Protect the Ocean
• 19:43
  podcast, because it's something that I think it's important, I
• 19:45
  think it's valuable for you to know.
• 19:47
  So I'd love to hear your comments or questions.
• 19:49
  Please let me know.
• 19:49
  Go to speakupforblue.com, and you can check out any ways to get a hold of me.
• 19:53
  You can go to the show notes, and look at Instagram, TikTok.
• 19:56
  You can DM me, or even on Facebook or LinkedIn.
• 19:58
  Always feel free to message me.
• 19:59
  I'd love to answer your questions or have a conversation,
• 20:02
  'cause that's what we do here.
• 20:03
  We try and start the conversation, and you guys continue it, and we have a good time.
• 20:06
  And of course, if you wanna support the podcast, you can go
• 20:08
  to speakupforblue.com/patreon.
• 20:11
  I would love to have your support, be a part of the community.
• 20:14
  We'll put up some extra stuff on there, some vlogs and all that kinda
• 20:16
  stuff once we get people starting to go ahead and support the Patreon,
• 20:20
  and just start this community.
• 20:22
  So I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
• 20:24
  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
• 20:26
  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
• 20:27
  Have a great day.
• 20:27
  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.