Susana
Suisuiki Pacific Waves presenter
An environmental
group in American Samoa is taking legal action against the
United States government over its plans
for deep-sea mining near the territory.
Fa’asao
Amerika Samoa and the Conservation Council for Hawaii filed
a lawsuit in August, challenging the US government’s
assessment of the potential risks to marine life from the
proposed mining.
The US is proposing to lease more
than 31 million acres of seabed around American Samoa, with
the lease sale scheduled for 19 November.
According to
the court complaint, the US has never before opened its
waters to deep-sea mining.
The proposed leases would
initially run for 20 years, with the possibility of an
extension if mining moves into production.
Questions
of threats to endangered species
Fa’asao Amerika
Samoa spokesperson Seumalu Elora Raymond told Pacific
Waves that the lawsuit is challenging a decision by the
National Marine Fisheries Service, which claims the proposed
leasing activity was not likely to affect threatened or
endangered marine species.
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Seumalu said the group was
concerned that the US had not done enough to assess the
risks.
“Many of these endangered species are also, you
know, really important sacred creatures for Samoan people,
like whales and sea turtles and sharks,” she
said.
“These are our creatures of legend and they’re
all completely going to be affected by deep-sea mining, so
our lawsuit says like you did not do a proper analysis of
how the continuous release of heavy metal contaminated
sludge into the ocean would affect all these
creatures.”
“Go back and do that work
again.”
The US government said the move is part of
President Donald Trump’s push to boost production and access
to critical minerals.
Resistance to mining lease
proposal
The proposed lease area is in the eastern
part of the American Samoa Outer Continental Shelf, about
104 miles from the Manu’a islands and the Rose Atoll Marine
National Monument, known by its traditional name
Muliāva.
The US government’s environmental
assessment noted the issues raised by the American Samoa
Government.
It said Governor Pulaali’i Nikolao Pula
called for “continued dialogue” and requested that no
activity proceed without territorial consent.
The
assessment said there were more than 76,000 submissions
during its initial public consultation.
Deep-sea
mining issue resonates
Seumalu said deep-sea mining
is an issue Samoans should be thinking about whether they
live in the islands or overseas.
“When you look at the
map of where they’re proposing to mine, it’s 31 million
acres around Muliāva but if you look at it, it stretches
all the way around all of our islands and it’s much bigger
than the entire stretch from Manu’a to Falealupo (Savaii,
Samoa).”
She said there have been ongoing protests
against the proposal in American
Samoa.
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