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 Hawai’i 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 12.5 million hectares of seabed around American Samoa, with the lease sale scheduled for November 19.

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 RNZ 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.

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 167 km 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.