Once More Unto The Breach, Dear Friends

Now that I'm well rested after an extended weekend holiday, it's time to once again draw attention to Nautilus Minerals. A business section cover story in the online edition of Australian newspaper The Age predicts a looming battle between deep sea mining pioneers and environmental groups.

Despite concerns from environmental NGO's such as WWF, Environmental Defense, and Mining Watch Canada as well as calls for a precautionary approach from yours truly and Craig over on Deep Sea News, Nautilus Minerals is ramping-up for the active extraction-phase of it's seabed mining operations in the exclusive economic zone of Papua New Guinea. If all goes according to plan, similar extractive operations will launch in quick order in Fiji and Tonga as well.

The Age article describes how Nautilus awarded a US$66 million contract to Soil Machine Dynamics, a UK-based firm self-described as "one of the world's leading subsea engineering companies specialising in the design and manufacture of remotely operated vehicle systems." I do get a chuckle out of the use of the word engineering. Subsea engineering sounds benign, doesn't it? All very theoretical and with implications that something is being built versus being taken apart.

The deep sea mining machines will resemble giant, abrasive vacuum cleaners. The two sea-floor mining systems will be capable of sucking-up approximately 1.5 million tons of ore annually. Needless to say, poly-metallic ore won't be the only thing scoured from the seabed during extraction. Delicate deep sea benthic communities of coral and the habitat these communities create for fish and other invertebrates will be part of the tailings heap once mining operations begin.

The Soil Machine Dynamics (SMD) website is something to behold. Their products page is a rogues gallery of industrial robots and deep sea mining machinery straight out of a Hollywood sci fi producers imagination. With product names like the Centurion, the Quantum, and deep sea ploughs of every shape, size, and color you can put to bed any question as to whether SMD or Nautilus Minerals operations will be subtle. This is mining, not engineering. The only difference is that deep seafloor mining won't generate a lot of images to raise public awareness and it's a little daunting to stage a protest or form a human chain in front of mining machinery in 2600 meters of water.

Despite assurances from Nautilus Minerals that their process of deep sea mining will have negligible co-lateral environmental impact, they have yet to release details of their environmental impact assessment. Not that their in-house produced assessment will carry much weight for environmental watchdogs. "We would like to see a thorough, independent impact assessment before any mining work begins," remarked Simon Cripps, Director of WWF's global marine program. Catherine Coumans with Mining Watch Canada, echos the call for third-party verification of risk assessment, "I would challenge the company to provide an independent scientific study."

The clock has now officially started on Nautilus Minerals providing evidence that their process poses no co-lateral risks to seafloor ecosystems or coastal coral reefs. Any wagers as to if and when they will respond to their critics?