Mid-Atlantic fisheries have long faced the same sort of
threats that faced fisheries elsewhere on the coast.
The possibility of overfishing is always there. A warming ocean forces fish stocks farther
north. Forage fish might become less
available. Dams deny diadromous fish
populations access to critical upstream habitat. Managers fail to rebuild depleted stocks.
But while all of those threats are real, scientists already
understand their impacts, and all are, at least in theory, subject to
remediation by properly focused regulations or, at worst, accommodation, by
recognizing the reality of things like shifting stocks, and adapting fisheries
to best suit the new normal.
Yet there is a potential new threat looming off the Virginia
coast that could cause large-scale disruption to the ocean floor, with
yet-unknown impacts on the wide variety of fish species that inhabit the
bottom, and perhaps the entire water column, between the state-federal border
and the edge of the continental shelf.
On
November 7, 2025, a company called Odyssey Marine Exploration filed a Lease
Sale Request with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. According
to the company’s website,
“The proposed [lease] area, located within the U.S. Outer
Continental Shelf (OCS) off the Mid-Atlantic coast, is prospective for heavy
mineral sands containing titanium, zirconium, and rare earth elements, with
beneficial sand co-products that can support beach replenishment and coastal
resilience projects…
“If future environmental reviews, regulatory approvals, and
project evaluations support commercial recovery, operations could utilize
shallow-water dredging techniques that are already widely used for navigation,
beach nourishment, and coastal resilience projects.”
What the company website didn’t point out is that the
potential scale of the proposed mining project would dwarf a mere channel
dredging or beach replenishment operation.
“located between three and 63.5 miles offshore of the
Delmarva Peninsula seaward of Accomack and Northampton counties in the
Commonwealth of Virginia and lies entirely on the [Outer Continental Shelf] of
the United States. This area is
comprised of approximately 1,769,196 acres (2,764 square miles) with an
approximate water depth of 30-410 feet (8-125 meters).”
That’s a lot of fish habitat that could be impacted, and
while
the company tries to assure the public that
“The design of project work plans will prioritize
environmental responsibility and, if a lease is granted, would align with BOEM’s
review framework, which is conducted in accordance with applicable federal laws—including
the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the
National Historic Preservation Act—and places environmental stewardship and
cultural preservation at the forefront of the process,”
one must remember that, just
about a year ago, the Trump administration began taking action to gut key
provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, and earlier
this month changed a key interpretation of the Endangered Species Act, so that
damaging critical habitat for an endangered species is no longer considered doing
“harm” to the species in question.
Thus, Odyssey’s assurances in that regard offer little real
comfort.
And one of the big problems with the proposed operation is
that no one is quite sure what sort of harm might ensue.
Becca
Loomis, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, observed
that
“It’s essentially a brand new industry globally, so it’s
unproven. We don’t entirely understand
what the risks are, and that makes it more concerning.”
She added,
“Heavy mineral sand mining involves dredging huge amounts of
sand from the seafloor, and then processing that sand to extract the
minerals. Essentially, you’re pulling up
huge, huge amounts of seafloor sediments.”
Megan
Huynh, who leads the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Wetlands and Coast
Program, stated that
shallow seabed mining
“directly destroys all the physical habitat on the seafloor,”
and will also stir up huge clouds of sediment that could also
lead to ecosystem disruptions.
And that can be problematic, because there is a lot of life
living in, on, and above the proposed leasing site.
The National Marine
Fisheries Service tells us that
“Summer flounder spawn in the fall and early winter when they
migrate offshore,”
a migration that would take them right through the proposed
lease area. In addition,
“Spawning peaks in October and November when water
temperatures change and autumn plankton is most productive. The combination of these elements improve the
chance of survival for larval summer flounder.”
How will vast sediment clouds impact the spawn, larval
survival, and the presence of plankton that the larvae need to survive?
“Black sea bass…migrate offshore and south in the fall,
returning inshore to coastal areas and bays in the spring,”
presumably crossing through, and wintering in, the proposed
lease area off Virginia. And those sea
bass
“eat whatever prey is available, but they especially like
crabs, shrimp, worms, small fish, and clams,”
prey that might become hard to find when a dredge “destroys
all the physical habitat on the seafloor.”
And it’s not only bottom fish that could be affected.
Female
bluefish realease their eggs in the open ocean; larvae develop into juveniles
over the continental shelf—again, in the proposed lease area—before the
juveniles move inshore and spend their first spring in coastal bays, estuaries,
and sounds. In the case of one of their preferred prey
species, Atlantic menhaden, there are
“major spawning areas from New Jersey to the Carolinas. The majority of spawning primarily occurs
offshore (20-30 miles) during winter.
Buoyant eggs hatch at sea, and are carried into estuarine nursery areas
by ocean currents,”
meaning that menhaden spawning will take place in the
proposed lease area as well. How either
the bluefish or menhaden spawns might be affected by the dredging activity, and
the huge sediment plumes that it would produce, is impossible to know.
And
then there are striped bass. The
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission tells us that
“Important wintering grounds for the mixed stocks are located
from offshore New Jersey to North Carolina.”
The
2018 benchmark striped bass stock assessment noted that
“Fishery-independent data collected by North Carolina DMF,
ASMFC, and USFWS…suggest striped bass distribution on their overwintering
grounds during December through February has changed significantly since the
mid-2000s. The migratory portion of the
stocks has been well offshore in the EEZ (>3 miles), requiring travel as far
as 25 [nautical miles] offshore of Chesapeake Bay to find fish to tag.”
That would place the center of winter striped bass abundance
well within the proposed lease area, and raise questions about how those
striped bass, as well as the baitfish they depend on to survive the winter and keep
them in condition to spawn in the spring, would be affected by dredging activity,
the resulting sediment plume, and the destruction of “all the physical habitat
on the sea floor.”
Other species, ranging from weakfish to bluefin tuna, might
also be affected by the dredging activities, yet the impacts on fish stocks do
not seem to be a major administration concern.
Although the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has issued a Request for
Information and Interest, which can be found at https://www.regulations.gov/document/BOEM-2026-0100-0001
and is claims to be seeking
“information and comments from Federally Recognized Indian
Tribes, Federal agencies, state and local governments, environmental and other
public interest organizations, the marine mineral mining and dredging
industries, other interested organizations and entities, and the public,”
through the comment deadline of July 23, it is virtually
certain that the leasing process will move forward, even if it meets
substantial public opposition. While it
is important for those opposed to the proposed leasing activities to build as strong
an administrative record as possible in support of their position, the plain
truth is that the Trump administration is dedicated to ocean floor mining, and
is unlikely to be dissuaded by anything less than a court order.
“Our Nation must take immediate action to accelerate the
responsible development of seabed mineral resources, quantify the Nation’s
endowment of seabed minerals, reinvigorate American leadership in associated extraction
and processing technologies, and ensure secure supply chains for our defense,
infrastructure, and energy sectors.”
The executive order also expresses a policy of
“rapidly developing domestic capabilities for the
exploration, characterization, collection, and processing of seabed mineral
resources through streamlined permitting without compromising environmental and
transparency standards,”
and directs the Secretary of the Interior to
“establish an expedited process for reviewing and approving
permits for prospecting and granting leases for exploration, development, and
production of seabed mineral resources within the United States Outer
Continental Shelf…The expedited process, consistent with applicable law, should
ensure efficiency, predictability, and competitiveness for American companies.”
So the fix is definitely in, and the odds stacked impossibly
high against those who would advise a go-slow approach to shallow seabed
mining, in order to better assess its risks to marine ecosystems.
Unless somehow slowed by the Commonwealth of Virginia, by
Congress, or by the courts, it is highly likely that the leasing process will
move forward and, assuming that minerals are present and sufficiently abundant
to ensure profitable extraction, that the Trump administration will authorize
mining operations—not only by Odyssey, but by any other company willing to bid
on a lease—before it leaves office in January 2029.
Should seabed mining begin, those companies will reap the
benefits.
Our fish, our fisheries, our fishermen, and the marine
environment as a whole, will bear the costs.
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