On 17 June 2026, Norway's supreme court ruled that a permit allowing Nordic Mining to pump crushed rock and chemical waste directly into Førde fjord was illegal under the EU's water framework directive. The court found the original justification — issued nearly a decade earlier — failed to meet the 'overriding public interest' threshold. For the few dozen residents of Vevring who had fought the mine since 2009, it looked like victory. It lasted hours. That same evening, a government lawyer appeared on national television to announce plans for a new temporary permit and to allow dumping to continue in the interim. Four days later, Nordic Mining applied for fresh permission. By late September, Norway's climate and environment ministry granted a new three-year permit, citing the EU's 2020 addition of titanium to its critical minerals list as changed circumstances. The legal logic is contested. Associate professor Tarjei Ellingsen Røsvoll of the University of Inland Norway calls the government's position 'unprecedented,' arguing that a permit 'exists or it doesn't' and that the supreme court's ruling was unambiguous. Økokrim, Norway's white-collar and environmental crime unit, is now considering whether to investigate the interim dumping as illegal. Meanwhile, waste continues to flow into the fjord. Submarined tailings deposition — pumping milled rock and chemical residue hundreds of metres underwater — is banned across North America, Australia, Russia, Brazil, China, and most of Europe. The handful of countries that still permit it include Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, and Turkey. Norway's Institute of Marine Research warns that the fine particles released by STD accumulate in smaller sea life and disrupt ecosystems. Research published this year on Repparfjord, where a copper mine dumped waste for six years in the 1970s, found elevated lead, arsenic, and chromium in haddock muscle tissue decades later. Nordic Mining is backed by Japan's Iwatani Corporation and the London offices of Morgan Stanley, UBS, and Goldman Sachs. Other major banks — Standard Chartered and Citigroup — explicitly ban financing for projects using submarine tailings deposition. Nordic Mining did not respond to the Guardian's requests for comment but posted on social media that it would continue operations 'with the ambition to act responsibly.' The Engebø deposit is one of Europe's largest known sources of rutile, a titanium-bearing mineral. The government frames the mine as strategically essential, noting that only Norway and Ukraine hold significant European reserves. This is the core tension: Europe's critical minerals push is colliding directly with environmental law and judicial authority. If the government's post-ruling manoeuvre becomes a template, every future mining permit in Norway gains an implicit guarantee that executive action will override court decisions when minerals are at stake. The case sits within a broader pattern of Norwegian water degradation. Fish farms are filling fjords with nutrient pollution equivalent to the raw sewage of tens of millions of people annually. Atlantic salmon populations are at historic lows — 155 of roughly 450 salmon rivers were closed to fishing this season. For Anne-Line Thingnes Førsund, the third-generation fisher who has fought the mine for 17 years, the principle is existential: 'When you have a government that doesn't respect the supreme court you're changing the system itself.'
