An environmental group filed a lawsuit in a Montana federal court Tuesday alleging that the US Forest Service has polluted waterways by inadvertently dropping fire retardant in or near waterways. The retardant was dropped by aircraft under contract with the Forest Service while assisting wildland firefighters on the ground.
The suit says government data released earlier this year showed more than 760,000 gallons of fire retardant was dropped into waterways between 2012 and 2019. The lawsuit alleges the continued use of retardant from aircraft violates the Clean Water Act and requests a judge to declare the pollution illegal.
The Forest Service has established retardant avoidance areas along waterways where the liquid is not supposed to be applied. This puts buffer zones around waterways and habitat for some threatened, endangered, and sensitive species in order to avoid applying retardant in those areas. When they were first established in 2011 it resulted in approximately 30 percent of USFS lands being off limits for retardant while fighting fire. There is an exception if human life or public safety is threatened. The policy was the result of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that studied the use of retardant and how it affects water resources and certain plant and wildlife species. The EIS was written in response to a July, 2010 decision by U. S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy in a lawsuit filed in 2008 by the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.
The same organization, FSEEE, filed the new case yesterday. An attorney in Missoula, MT who specializes in environmental law, Tim Bechtold, will be representing FSEEE. Presiding over the case will be District Court Judge Dana Christensen. He joined the court in 2011 after a nomination from President Barack Obama. Before, he was a partner in the firm of Christensen, Moore, Cockrell, Cummings, and Axelberg, in Kalispell, Montana. One of the 15 practice areas the firm deals with today is environment and natural resources.
In 2012 FSEEE issued a statement criticizing the use of air tankers on fires, claiming it is “immoral”. The group argued that aerial firefighting is too dangerous and ineffective and that “retardant doesn’t save homes; proper construction and landscaping save homes.”
Well stated Frank. This lawsuit may seem frivolous, but the USFS only responds to the Courts. The North Complex, the August Complex, etc, etc were mismanagement beyond comprehension. If the USFS cannot put their fires out and join the Fire Service as a honest and productive Fire Department, then turn National Forest fire management over to the states.
Jim Robertson
There must be an environmentally friendly solution. Great points Frank.
Might have better luck with the AFUE study by reaching out to the personnel on the modules who believed in the project, who tirelessly collected the data, all in the attempt to help make a difference. But their passion was squashed with the changing of the guard, and the whitewashing of the study.
Correct Frank, the FS firing Ops are many times over more dangerous to the TOTAL ENVIRONMENT than the dropping of retardant near blue line streams. Just the facts !
I’ve watched many a hotshot crew burn the f out of some line. Doing the post fire assessment sometimes the high severity fire is correlated with burn operations. Sometimes things are ripping and you just need to rip but a lot of times we got the time to be more gentle with things.
I am kinda ambivalent about the lawsuit, we need people pushing on us to do better and to think about things in new ways. Sometimes the only way the Forest Service listens is to lawsuits. Unsure if there is anything of value to listen to in this one.
I am also looking around and seeing the failures of the Forest Service leadership all around me. At all levels. I was given a Forest Service tee shirt this week in sort of a Dilbert scenario. I gave it away. I don’t have any pride to wear the agency logo and I am used to being threatened by militia groups and other public so I keep my profile low.
No evidence of operational effectiveness of retardant in aerial firefighting. Never has been. None of the studies have determined whether retardant additives make any difference at all in the operational environment – none. Should use red water, and nobody on the ground would be able to tell the difference.
George, perhaps they will repeat this study again: https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/08242020_afue_final_report.pdf
The nine-year Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness study conducted by the US Forest Service does not need to be repeated. But the actual complete data collected in the study needs to be revealed.
“AFUE was initially intended to eventually help answer questions about the size and composition of aviation assets needed by the USFS,” Tom Harbour, former USFS Director of Fire and Aviation told Fire Aviation.
The Forest Service report about the study completely avoided this issue. I feel confident the data that would enable complete analysis was collected, but is being hidden.
Amen, brother. Bill Gabbert…I have attempted in every possible way to successfully get those — I am unwell and I gave the FOIAs and PRRs to my blog partner. Call him up — it requires a software I do not have —- but Amen and I can help build the perfect first Human case study in regards to slurry being dropped on “live” fire in the most dense vegetation ( extreme patches of datura jimson weed) drenched by Senator Hayes drops of the years – the tebuthiuron…yeah, for almost a decade I did my part — now after a brutal assault done my way — let others take over on the — Yarnell Hill Fire 2013 — most horrific ways people died. Sad. Very sad. RiP … I can teach them how to work the many tools — all day long but bringing to the end with all the political layers / cultural / many generations / heritage / omissions where certain stations were / etc… why bother…for too long we were just one of the last people to take the photos of those men before they died but believe you me— as the rest carry out with the political publicist and lawyers … in “checkmate” mode folks …but I will tell you this many should hang their heads in shame and get right before you get left…Amen. God is watching. Hallelujah.
Hey Stan,
AFUE was one of the biggest unmitigated follies in USFS history, it should not be repeated under any circumstances. I have no doubt that it produced reams of data but there was no coherent analysis ever done from what I can tell. When the “results” were released it was an incomplete, jittery word-salad of little use to anyone than isn’t a habitual intravenous drug user with syphilis. The FS needs to release the raw data to a University to be organized and form a conclusion that is coherent.
So when retardant STOPS a fire, or the retardant holds the fire line, that you say, is ineffective.
When the ground asks for retardant they can’t tell the difference huh. Mmmkay.
Exactly. It don’t work except for the thousands of times it does. Just like they latch onto an IA that went project rather than the thousands of IAs that were pinched, contained/controlled in very few operational periods using the same methods.
I think there is a world of difference between “retardant is useless” and “retardant is appropriate in every situation that we use it in”. Retardant is great in some areas, not so great in others. But we treat retardant application as a given on virtually every fire beyond a tenth acre these days, without a real consideration of the risks (both short term to aircraft and long term to the environment) vs reward. And we do it because the public demands that we do something, and dramatic retardant drops make good B roll on the local news.
There’s less harmful and probably more effective choices out now. Aviation is much like NASCAR, everyone has a sponsor, maybe pilots should wear sponsor patches on their flight suits.
The agency decides what is carried by the contractors.
Just how does this alleged polution to waterways compare to air, soil and water polution caused by a fire that cannot be controlled any other way and burns for additional days, weeks or months?
Although no one seems to be able to (or want to) address the polution from a wildfire in specific, objective terms, it may be as damaging as the fire itself, especially if it burns into developed areas where so many “artificial” materials are now used.
This would be a good start to review the Rand report and update it. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG1234.html
Spot on Frank
Great, now all the ATGS’s will have to go through 7000hrs of indemnity/CYA training so the FS can say “we told em not to do it”.
…or Moore will start headhunting like he did with Rx.
Maybe it’s time to try something new something that is already listed in the EPA Safer Choice Program
Agree! Agree! Firerein has a USDA-certified, 100% biobased, UL- certified, Class A and Class B fire suppressant, that is now being used by fire services in Canada. And we can prove it!
S. A.
MFB-31-CitroTech is made in America and already in the EPA Safer Choice Program and well into the Missoula testing regiment now. The clean safe fire inhibitor can be atomized to put A & B out faster then ever before. Never falls out, never needs re-blending and it’s odor less and when sprayed on lumber it passes ASTM E84 extended Class A