U.S. District Court Judge Dana Christensen ruled against the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics’ request for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to halt their use of fire retardant during ongoing litigation.
Christensen ordered the agency to continue applying for a permit to discharge retardant into waterways and maintain water quality standards. The group alleges in a lawsuit that the fire retardant contains toxic levels of heavy metals and violates the Endangered Species Act.
“More than 800,000 pounds of toxic metals have been dumped onto national forests during aerial fire retardant drops over the past decade, toxic contamination that will harm the natural ecosystem, especially endangered and threatened species as well as water quality,” the group said.
