The arguments against deep sea mining are piling up, but so are the dollars in favor of it. I personally can’t think of anything more predictably disastrous to already threatened ecosystems than allowing such an industry to spawn. Regulatory authority will be vague and/or contested, monitoring and enforcement will be difficult and expensive, and labor conditions are likely match that of land-based mining operations. In other words, it’s a seriously bad idea. Sadly, anyone who stands to be harmed has little influence to leverage…if ecological protection ranked on any congressional priority list, plastics would not be occupying Texas-sized garbage patches, not to mention the internal organs of every creature on the food chain.