Norway Court Bans Fjord Dumping; Mine Gets New Permit — SkimNews
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- Norway's supreme court ruled on June 17, 2026 that the government's permit for the Engebø titanium mine to release mining waste into Førde fjord was illegal, ending a 17-year legal fight led by Friends of the Earth Norway (Naturvernforbundet).
- The Norwegian climate and environment ministry granted Nordic Mining a fresh three-year permit in late September, days after the mine applied; the company kept discharging waste into the fjord throughout the legal limbo.
- Nordic Mining, which began dumping waste in late 2024, is financed by Japan's Iwatani Corporation and the London offices of Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Goldman Sachs, while Standard Chartered and Citigroup explicitly ban STD financing.
- Submarine tailings deposition (STD) is outlawed in North America, Australia, Russia, Brazil, China, and most of Europe; Norway, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Turkey are among the few countries that still permit it.
- The Institute of Marine Research found haddock near Repparfjod in the Arctic — where a copper mine dumped waste for six years in the 1970s — still carry elevated lead, arsenic, and chromium decades later; an IMR research professor warned Engebø's milled waste "like flour" could spread through the fjord.
- Tarjei Ellingsen Røsvoll, associate professor of administrative and constitutional law at the University of Inland Norway, called the government's continuation "unprecedented," arguing it "damages trust and undermines a fundamental structure of constitutional and administrative law."
- The climate ministry defended the permit by citing the EU's 2020 addition of titanium to its critical minerals list, noting the Engebø deposit is one of the world's largest known rutile reserves; 155 of Norway's 450 salmon rivers were closed to fishing this year amid collapsing Atlantic salmon populations.
Why it matters: Legal scholar Tarjei Ellingsen Røsvoll calls the government's move "openly allowing a company to dump a bunch of stuff in a fjord illegally" and "unprecedented," saying it damages trust in Norway's constitutional and administrative law. With the Engebø deposit among the world's largest rutile reserves and titanium newly on the EU's critical minerals list, Førde fjord has become a test case for whether Europe's strategic-minerals push can override domestic environmental rulings.
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