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As the mining industry promises to minimize damage to ocean ecosystems alongside miners, scientists say we can't predict its full extent – or how to reverse it.
Almost everything we use depends on the mining industry, whether phones contain elements like aluminum, nickel and lithium, how can miners change that? The growing human population places increasing demands on the non-renewable resources that come from the Earth's crust. Technological advances and the search for renewable energy sources can aggravate the situation.
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Mining 3.000 Leagues Under the Sea
The insertion of the offshore mining industry will mimic operations on land, with one big caveat: everything must happen under crushing pressures and near-freezing waters. Furthermore, the deposits in question (polymetallic nodules, polymetallic sulfides and cobalt-rich crusts) predominantly occur at depths between 400 and 6.000 meters below sea level, prohibiting the use of manned vehicles.
Instead, mining industry operations will be entirely controlled by a surface support vessel. Fiber-optic cables running from the ship to the bottom of the sea by mining companies will power and control vehicles that look like a supervillain's tool for world domination with instruments to grind, scrape and suck up silt and ore.
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After the ore has been mined from the seafloor, a slurry of minerals, sediments and seawater must be mechanically pumped back to the support vessel, where the desired metals will be separated from the rest of the slurry. Any unwanted water and materials – called “industry waste” – will be dumped back into the ocean.
Minimizing Damage
O ISA appears to have accepted the inevitability of environmental damage from the offshore mining industry and plans to focus on minimizing damage and restoring ecosystems after mining damage occurs.
In doing so, ISA may fail to fulfill its responsibility to protect fragile deep-sea habitats from harmful mining activities.
Scientists have expressed concerns about recommendations within the latest strategic plan that only provide non-binding guidelines with little legal backing to ensure contractors adhere.
Some also find fault with the plan's apparent reliance on restoring damaged habitats after mining—efforts that prove costly and often unsuccessful, even in shallow water habitats (such as coral reefs and salt marshes) that we understand much better than any deep-sea ecosystem.
