Environmentalists aim to halt first-ever US deep-sea mining sale

Conservation groups say wildlife officials cleared the way for a 31 million-acre deep-sea mining lease sale in American Samoa without analyzing the effects on endangered and threatened species.

by Jeremy Yurow, Court House News, August 19, 2026

HONOLULU (CN) — Seventy nautical miles northeast of Rose Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, where Samoan families have long tracked sacred sea turtles and revered sharks as ancestral guardians, the federal government plans to sell the rights to mine the seafloor for metal.

Two conservation groups sued on Tuesday to delay the planned sale, arguing wildlife officials waved it through without adequately studying what mining could do to the whales, turtles and coral that depend on those waters.

“The United States has never opened its waters to deep-sea mining,” Earthjustice said in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Fa’asao Amerika Samoa and the Conservation Council for Hawaii. “Until now.”

The groups filed suit in Honolulu federal court against the National Marine Fisheries Service and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, challenging a four-page letter the agency issued in February concluding a planned lease sale covering more than 31 million acres of seabed off American Samoa was unlikely to adversely affect any of roughly 60 endangered or threatened species identified in the agency’s review.

The plaintiffs say that conclusion left out the part that matters most: the mining itself.

The Marine Minerals Administration, formed this summer from the merger of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, plans to auction two leases in November covering more than 31 million acres northeast of American Samoa’s Manu’a Islands.

The leases would cover areas containing polymetallic nodules, potato-sized mineral deposits containing nickel, cobalt and manganese, and would allow for subsequent exploration, testing, development and production subject to federal requirements.

“The machinery can destroy nearly all life in its path,” the plaintiffs wrote.

Federal law requires the fisheries service to weigh in before the sale can proceed, determining whether the action is likely to jeopardize species protected under the Endangered Species Act or harm critical habitat. The plaintiffs argue the agency’s biological assessment addressed only preliminary activities such as sonar surveys and seafloor sampling, while leaving out the effects of later activities.

“Despite MMA’s stated purpose for the lease sale, its biological assessment does not include the intended mineral exploration, development, and extraction in the ‘Effects of the Action,’” the plaintiffs said.

No commercial seabed mining operation exists anywhere in the world yet. But the plaintiffs point to limited testing elsewhere showing mining stirs up sediment plumes capable of smothering coral reefs more than 60 miles away, with recovery from a single disturbance estimated to take more than a century.

Species named in the fisheries service’s concurrence letter include endangered blue, fin, sei and sperm whales, all five sea turtle populations found in American Samoa’s waters, and five threatened coral species with designated critical habitat there. Also on the list are the Main Hawaiian Island insular false killer whale and the Hawaiian monk seal, which were included because the proposed project’s activity and vessel traffic could affect Hawaii’s waters.

The plaintiffs argue the fisheries service ignored the Endangered Species Act’s core purpose: stopping harm before it happens, not after.

“NMFS’s Letter of Concurrence violates key legal requirements under the ESA and reflects a wholly arbitrary and capricious determination,” they write.

The environmentalists also point to their own members. One is a Native Hawaiian diver who regards the oceanic whitetip shark as an ‘aumakua, an embodiment of ancestral guardians, and whose family has served as kahu manō, shark keepers, for generations. Members of Fa’asao Amerika Samoa describe traditional Samoan governance rules that prohibit harming whales, turtles and sharks in the region.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to void the fisheries service’s concurrence letter and order a legally adequate review before any lease sale can proceed. They are not challenging the Marine Minerals Administration’s authority to hold a lease sale at all, only the wildlife agency’s determination that the proposed action is unlikely to negatively affect protected species and habitat.

A final leasing notice is due at least 30 days before the Nov. 19 sale date, meaning any court ruling would likely need to come quickly to affect this year’s timeline.

Representatives for the National Marine Fisheries Service and Earthjustice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.