This is one of Norway’s most pristine fjords. So why is it being used as a dumping site for mine waste? — SkimNews
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- Norway's supreme court ruled on 17 June 2026 that the government's permit for the Engebø titanium mine to release waste into Førde fjord was illegal, ending a 17-year legal fight by Friends of the Earth Norway.
- Nordic Mining applied for a fresh permit four days after the ruling and was granted a new three-year permit in late September 2026 by Norway's climate and environment ministry, allowing dumping to continue in the meantime.
- Norway's government argues the project matters because the Engebø mountain holds one of the world's largest known rutile deposits and the EU added titanium to its critical minerals list in 2020.
- Nordic Mining is financed by Japan's Iwatani Corporation and the British offices of Morgan Stanley, UBS and Goldman Sachs, while Standard Chartered and Citigroup explicitly ban financing of submarine tailings deposition (STD) projects.
- Submarine tailings deposition is outlawed in North America, Australia, Russia, Brazil, China and most of Europe; Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Turkey are among the few countries that still permit the practice.
- Norway's Institute of Marine Research found haddock with elevated lead, arsenic and chromium in their muscles near the Arctic Repparfjord decades after copper mine dumping ended there in the 1970s, research published in 2026.
- Norwegian Atlantic salmon populations are at a historic low, with 155 of the country's roughly 450 salmon rivers closed to fishing at the start of the 2026 season.
Why it matters: Norway's supreme court declared the Engebø mine's dumping permit illegal, yet the government granted a fresh three-year permit in late September, and Økokrim is now weighing a criminal probe. Legal scholars say the sequence treats a supreme court ruling as optional when EU-listed critical minerals are at stake.
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