[HN Gopher] Norway to allow mining waste to be dumped in fjords
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Norway to allow mining waste to be dumped in fjords
Author : atombender
Score : 95 points
Date : 2024-01-13 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> "It's frightening that the judicial system shows so little
| understanding for environmental rights." The plaintiffs claimed
| the verdict was in breach of the EU's water framework directive,
| which they claimed in this case had been misinterpreted._
|
| If Norway is not in the EU, how would such directives apply to
| them?
| kzrdude wrote:
| Norway is part of EEA
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area
|
| As they say, they are party to most of the EU regulations, but
| don't have voting rights to change them.
| lou1306 wrote:
| Yeah I'd say if Norwegian goods (ore, in this case) can
| freely enter the common market, then they should be bound to
| the same regulations as EU mining companies, or they would
| have an unfair advantage. We'll see how the EU reacts to the
| verdict.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| > The court ordered Friends of the Earth Norway and Nature and
| Youth, the two environmental organisations who brought the case,
| to pay legal costs of about PS110,000. They could still take the
| case to the court of appeal, but say their resources are
| currently too diminished to continue the fight, though they are
| hoping for external support.
|
| We are all equal in the eyes of the law but only some can afford
| the law.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| But every single person is capable of becoming the billionaire
| who is needed to fight these billionaire owners - that's how we
| define freedom
|
| edit: yes i know
| devnonymous wrote:
| This is laughably incorrect!! The net-worth of an average
| millionaire is closer to that of an average minimum wage
| worker than that of an average billionaire.
|
| People really don't grok generational weath and scale of
| money.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| What's laughable is that you think the average minimum wage
| working person has a positive net worth.
| devnonymous wrote:
| Heh, no, I don't and that doesn't change the assertion,
| if you think about it.
| elviejo wrote:
| sarcasm doesn't translate well in text form.
| strangecasts wrote:
| Especially frustrating, since, as the article points out,
| Norway is party to the Aarhus convention which specifically
| requires that environmental cases should not be "prohibitively
| expensive" ("uoverkommelig dyre"), but the government excluded
| "side costs" such as lawyers' fees and expert witnesses from
| their estimated cost of a trial [1]
|
| [1] https://issuu.com/deninternasjonalejuristkommisjon-
| norge/doc...
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> but the government excluded "side costs" such as lawyers'
| fees and expert witnesses from their estimated cost of a
| trial [1]_
|
| What the hell is left? Sandwich orders during intermissions?
| afsag wrote:
| "Friends of the Earth Norway" and "Nature and Youth" weren't
| personally affected by "mining waste being dumped in fjords"
| (if this is what really is happening). This is not a case of
| people who can't afford to have the law solve an injustice they
| are suffering. This is a case of people who wanted to spend
| some money on some principled stand... well, having principles
| costs money. Why should every Norwegian person pay for all of
| this?
| strangecasts wrote:
| > (if this is what really is happening)
|
| TU explains the process [1] - the waste is mixed with
| seawater and a flocculating agent, but it is fundamentally
| still being dumped
|
| [1] https://www.tu.no/artikler/nederlag-for-miljobevegelsen-
| ting...
| Morte42 wrote:
| The government consulted the Norwegian Institute of Marine
| Research to run a study and they did and concluded it was a bad
| idea. The government and court in turn decided to ignore their
| consultants... I expected better from a judge at least.
| strangecasts wrote:
| I found it strange that one of the stated reasons behind the
| verdict was that the court believed that Nature and Youth's
| alternate proposal [1] of storing the waste in underground
| depots would not be any more environmentally friendly than
| the alternative [2]:
|
| > "Viktigst er likevel at tingretten ikke finner mest
| sannsynlig at et driftsalternativ med lagring av
| avgangsmasser i dedikerte bergrom vil vaere miljomessig
| vesentlig bedre enn sjodeponi - alle miljovirkninger tatt i
| betraktning." ("The most important fact is that the court
| does not find it likely that mining operations with storage
| of mining waste in dedicated subterranean depots would be a
| substantial improvement environmentally on storing it at sea
| - with all environmental consequences factored in.")
|
| [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/10bcrk0Iyvn8eouBshKcNGxe3
| 5fc...
|
| [2] https://www.tu.no/artikler/nederlag-for-miljobevegelsen-
| ting...
| gruez wrote:
| That's a sad state of affairs, but I'm not exactly sure what
| the alternative is supposed to be. Have the state handle this?
| They're the ones that the environmentalists are fighting
| against.
| gizajob wrote:
| How will this affect their parrot populations?
| readyplayernull wrote:
| Politicians will be safe, thanks.
| whyenot wrote:
| Unfortunately, the Norwegian Blue and its beautiful plumage has
| passed on.
| gizajob wrote:
| Silly me - I thought it said pining but it said mining.
| e12e wrote:
| You jest, but Norway has "Ocean parrots" - the Atlantic Puffin:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_puffin
| salt-thrower wrote:
| Sad. I had no idea "dump it in the water" was still a waste
| disposal practice in any developed nations. As per the article,
| only three countries on earth still grant licenses for this:
| Turkey, Papua New Guinea, and Norway.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| The rest just export the practice outside their constituency's
| sight, an expensive luxury only affordable to developed nations
| zh3 wrote:
| Indeed, Trafigura [0] [1] are a shining example of how to do
| business (they dodged prosecution in Norway [2] for the same
| kind of waste they dumped in Africa).
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Ivory_Coast_toxic_wast
| e_d...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafigura
|
| [2] https://www.nrk.no/dokumentar/a-small-pawn-in-the-
| game-1.610...
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Lots of places still do this, and just burn it in open pits.
|
| Places you would need expect like Tahiti which is a French
| Overseas Entity, and even Hawaii. There aren't a lot of options
| in some places.
| fallingknife wrote:
| This is mining waste. It's rocks and dirt. You can't burn it.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Some you can, like coal
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| What is the nature of the waste that will be thrown into the sea?
| Some kind of dirt, rocks or something else?
| mogadsheu wrote:
| The substances needed to efficiently extract the materials of
| interest and separate them from the remaining ore can be a
| toxic.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Mine waste can contain up to three dozen dangerous chemicals,
| including arsenic, lead, mercury, and cyanide. These metals
| accumulate in fish and the people and wildlife that eat them.
| The pollution contaminates drinking water, decimates ecosystems
| and destroys fisheries.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Can contain or do contain? Does anyone know what the actual
| things are here? Searching for it I get a lot of these
| generic statements but nothing specific about this waste.
| goodSteveramos wrote:
| No. No one actually knows what wastes they are talking
| about.
| Morte42 wrote:
| Generally speaking anything that cant be extracted
| profitably will be left behind, depending on the
| circumstances metals like iron and copper will even end up
| being discarded in some places. What ends up in a mines
| slurry might vary batch by batch. Then theres the fact that
| some things are only dangerous when in gas or dust form or
| are benign unless in very high concentrations. Sometimes
| there's a reaction between multiple things in the slurry
| that leads to the danger. Other times the slurry might be
| benign until it reacts with something where it is dumped.
| Acidity and deoxygenation can cause bigger problems than
| even very toxic mining waste in some circumstances.
|
| Consider that for every kilogram of usable Lithium we
| extract we need 170KG of raw ore which requires us to
| remove 1600KG of material. With Platinum we are moving
| 670,000KG to get a kilo of the metal. The waste vastly
| outweighs the end product but the end product is where the
| money is so we know little about the waste aside from that
| it needs to be disposed of.
| e12e wrote:
| > the concern is not about adding rocks and dirt to the
| ocean.
|
| That's not entirely true:
|
| https://www.hi.no/en/hi/temasider/ocean-and-coast/mining-
| was...
|
| > Dumping large quantities of sand and other material will
| have a big impact on fauna living at the bottom of the sea,
| and it may even completely wipe out existing ecosystems at
| the marine disposal site itself.
| rightbyte wrote:
| It is not hard to imagine fish and clam or whatever not
| doing very good getting rocks and mud dumped on them.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| heavy metals that are bound in the Earth are freed during
| mining. There are many heavy metals that are directly toxic to
| most life a.k.a. poisonous. In addition, some heavy metals
| bioaccumulate in the food chain -- that is, when a fish eats
| the plant with the metals on it, the fish does not excrete the
| elements, over time, then a predator eats many fish. It is a
| serious and well-studied effect.
| e12e wrote:
| See the Norwegian Ocean Research Institute page on the topic:
|
| https://www.hi.no/en/hi/temasider/ocean-and-coast/mining-was...
| Dig1t wrote:
| Is mining waste just rocks and dirt? Or is it chemicals?
|
| tbh I don't see a problem with dumping rocks and dirt in the
| ocean
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Rocks and dirt are aggregates of chemicals, and different kinds
| of rocks and dirt are made up of different chemicals.
|
| Mining waste includes the chemicals from the ground, and
| chemicals used in the mining process (and chemicals produced in
| the interaction between the two.) Obviously, with significantly
| less of whatever was being mined, since the whole goal is to
| extract that from the first by use of the second.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| The problem is that the rocks exhumed in mining _are_
| chemicals, which then release all that 100% natural heavy metal
| and arsenic.
|
| The surface of the earth has the benefit of being weathered,
| with most of the nasty stuff leached away or covered up, but it
| can be surprising much stuff the water running through debris
| or mine holes can pick up. Especially since we tend to choose
| to make mines in areas where there's especially a lot of nasty
| stuff.
|
| I can't speak to the actual danger presented, but this is a
| pretty reasonable thing to throw up a fuss about.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Doesn't this same thing happen with geological processes all
| over the world? Like when a volcano explodes or forms under
| water?
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Sulfur, salt, mercury, arsenic, lead, are all rocks or in rocks
| e12e wrote:
| See my earlier comment:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38983228
| racketcon2089 wrote:
| Imagine working with a software engineer who is not just this
| mentally sloppy and incapable of using a search engine, but
| also creates a permanent digital record of their own
| incompetence.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| They probably want to expand mines of cobalt, nickel or some
| other EV material
| tappaseater wrote:
| So much for the Brisling Sardines industry. We hardly knew ye.
| exabrial wrote:
| Here's an idea: put it back where you found it
| lgkk wrote:
| I really hope some event happens that will just wipe greedy
| bastards off world
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| To be clear, this is a municipal court decision. It may still be
| appealed, and the plaintiffs are still deciding whether to do so.
|
| My hunch is they will. There's been a massive surge of support,
| new members, and cash for these organisations as a reaction to
| the verdict.
|
| In addition this is a complex case with little precedent,
| involving international treaties. Cases like that are typically
| destined for the supreme court, and possibly even international
| courts.
|
| So this probably isn't the final verdict.
| nektro wrote:
| disappointing.
| racketcon2089 wrote:
| This makes perfect sense when you consider that all of the people
| who will benefit from this will be dead or far away in very large
| estates by the time the negative externalities become undeniable
| from a liability perspective.
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