Map showing location of photos of retardant near Sespe Creek at the Howard Fire. The red area is the western side of the fire Oct. 12, 2022. The photo locations were obtained from the metadata in the iPhone photos.A lawsuit filed Tuesday alleged that the US Forest Service has polluted waterways by firefighting air tankers inadvertently dropping fire retardant in or near waterways in violation of the Clean Water Act and a policy adopted by the Forest Service and other federal agencies in 2011. The policy requires that retardant not be dropped within 300 feet of a waterway on federal land.
Photo 1. Retardant near Sespe Creek at the Howard Fire. Oct. 12, 2022. Peter Deneen.Fire Aviation has acquired photos and a video that reportedly show signs of retardant being dropped into Sespe Creek on the Los Padres National Forest 8 miles northeast of Ojai, California October 8, 2022. The photos were shot by Pete Deneen on October 12, 2022 at the 85-acre Howard Fire. The creek is designated a “wild and scenic river” and is in a wilderness area.
Photo 2. Retardant near Sespe Creek at the Howard Fire. Oct. 12, 2022. Peter Deneen.The photos show retardant on rocks and other objects very close to water in Sespe Creek.
Photo 3. Retardant in a dry area of Sespe Creek at the Howard Fire. Oct. 12, 2022. Peter Deneen.Some organisms, including aquatic threatened and endangered species or their habitats, can be adversely affected by retardants. In addition, retardant in water is a pollutant.
According to US Forest Service data, between 2012 and 2019, the Forest Service discharged retardant on at least 376 occasions totaling 761,282 gallons from aircraft directly into national forest waterways.
In the video below Mr. Deneen explains that there were two locations where retardant was dropped very close to the creek. In one case the aircraft may have turned as it was dropping to follow the creek for several hundred yards, or a second drop accounted for the retardant in the waterway.
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 11 by the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, FSEEE. In the group’s complaint they are seeking:
- A declaration that the Forest Service’s placement of retardant in waterways is a violation of the Clean Water Act.
- An injunction “to compel the Forest Service to comply with applicable environmental statutes, prevent irreparable harm, and satisfy the public interest.”
- Reimbursement for FSEEE’s costs, expenses, expert witness fees, and attorney fees.
- “Such further relief as may be just, proper, and equitable.”
More about FSEEE’s history of protesting retardant, and the federal government’s policy of retardant avoidance areas established in 2011.
14 Comments
Those who brought this suit should try flying a plane precisely enough to avoid this sort of thing while avoiding terrain with smoke obscuring your vision. Pathetic losers.
Why is that everyone is an expert on how to do the job except the person doing the job?
I’m with Tom P and this too.
I agree with Tom . These environmental Yo Yos ,have no idea of the difficulties involved with Retardant drops !
Maybe they would rather their homes ,or towns burn down ?? What a silly ,impertinent lawsuit! We do not live in a perfect World.
Retardant delivery is often “surgery with a shotgun.” We most certainly do our absolute best to drop on target and not effect sensitive areas. However, it is pretty sad to armchair quarterback these drops. Where was the smoke? Where was the exit? What were the wind conditions? Now that the fire is gone, you can point your fingers and say, “They should’ve turned 90* and minimized exposure.” Well, maybe they couldn’t have!
I do not think any of these FSEEE types hold any sort of aviation credentials to deliver retardant. I’m of the belief that they rarely understand meteorology, flying skills, risk management, and if they were so concerned about retardant around waterways…they would have understood all these intracies already.
If they had not buckled to other “environmentalists” and concentrated on proper forest management since the 1960s and paid attention to the field instead of the screen….MAYBE some of the arguments could have subsided…
I’d also have to add…..how many mistakes in forestry have contributed to affecting fish, wildlife,and humanity that FSEEE and others have contributed to degradation and poisoning, crappy living quarters for firefighters, etc…..
THEN… I MIGHT start listening or understanding this bunch
Forestry issues have probably caused more problems and issues than gallons delivered….
When this restriction first came out it crippled firefighting efforts, and that was before this climate change environment and 10,000 gallon drops, We finally worked around it by stating an “emergency” virtually anytime we were near a sensitive waterway, just in case. It is nonsense to think that all drops can be away from these areas . And if you thing a bit of retardant is a problem, let the fire burn both sides to mineral earth and see what it does to water quality and fish habitat. I thought this had been put to bed years ago,
What’s the point of leaving a gap? Generally rivers and waterways are at the bottom of slopes where, if a retardant line doesn’t run right up to the water/cat-line/road/guard etc, if the fire finds the gap will whip up hill leaving the retardant efforts redundant no? If you’ve ever seen blobs or red surrounded by hectares/acres of black then you know what I mean. “Start here, end there, don’t get any in the water”…”Little pink on the shoreline. Bullseye. reload!”
Maybe all air attack bases should have some retardant available without dye for use near water.
Doug, I read that and laughed a lot more than I should have.
I agree with all of the comments above, the pilots are doing an important job, putting their lives at risk, and do their best to get the retardant where it needs to go while dealing with all of the environmental and safety factors. Sometimes drops are off by a bit when you are doing everything possible to stop the forward progress of a fire and protect life and resources. There have been many published studies showing the toxicity of retardant in water, and while it’s not ideal, it’s not as bad as this FSEEE organization would have us believe, and nowhere near the magnitude of industrial waste that hits streams daily across the country. I think real motive of the FSEEE organization is very clear by one of their demands in the lawsuit discussed above: “Reimbursement for FSEEE’s costs, expenses, expert witness fees, and attorney fees.” The last thing we need are these ambulance chasers getting involved in firefighting. Since this organization seems to get to every fire just looking for some retardant near water, I’d say that the 2 drops this year out of thousands isn’t bad at all. Quite honestly some of their photos seem staged; moving rocks around, etc. Further, in this lawsuit concerning the mostly dry creek, they are alleging irreparable harm ensues from retardant drops, which isn’t borne out by science and undefined “impact” to the waterway.
Bradley, that is a very severe charge, alleging that “Quite honestly some of their photos seem staged; moving rocks around, etc.” To post an accusation like that requires more evidence. Were you there? Please be “honest.”
There have been a lot of published studies showing toxicity of retardant in water, and while it’s not ideal, it’s not as bad as this FSEEE organization would have people believe. And it’s nowhere near the magnitude of industrial waste that hits waterways daily across the country. It seems the real motive of the FSEEE organization is clear by one of their demands in the lawsuit discussed above: “Reimbursement for FSEEE’s costs, expenses, expert witness fees, and attorney fees.” The last thing we need are these ambulance chasers getting involved in firefighting. Since this organization seems to get to every fire just looking for some retardant near water, I’d say that the 2 drops this year out of thousands isn’t bad at all.
All of the comments above are right on, the pilots are doing an important job, putting their lives at risk, and do their best to get the retardant where it needs to go while dealing with all of the environmental and safety factors. Sometimes drops are off by a bit when you are trying to stop a fire and protect life and resources. Quite honestly some of the FSEEE photos seem staged; by moving rocks around, etc. And in this lawsuit concerning the mostly dry creek, they are alleging “irreparable” harm ensues from retardant drops, which isn’t borne out by science.
It’s almost inevitable that at some point in our season, some lateral drift or forward momentum will carry parts of retardant loads into waterways. But it’s still incumbent upon pilots and air attack staff to do everything in our power to avoid doing so, and not just when over more ecologically or politically sensitive watersheds (emergency dumps notwithstanding). Same principle applies to rooftops as well).
Difficult to comment on this instance; we weren’t present to see visibility conditions at the time, but the first drop pointed out in the video does seem like a risky (or even irresponsible?) line down the creek bed – which appears to serve as a natural riparian fire break.
There’s a fine balance we need to take here: the various stabilizers & corrosion inhibitors in retardant is nasty stuff and we do not want to get it into waterways – no matter what values we’re protecting. In this case, the values appear to be scrubland only. Using the tired “pilot heroes risking their lives” trope is not an excuse. If you can’t “precisely control” the aircraft, or see the area over which you’re dropping, then we need to reevaluate the urgency of dropping in the first place. Before scoffing at or dismissing this lawsuit, and before calling those who bring it as “losers” etc, we need to explore what happened and whether this could have been prevented. There’s bound to be some lessons learned here, and I bet those who were in the sky that day are going to think carefully when faced with a similar drop in future.
Many firefighters ‘in the moment’ tend to forget to balance potential losses to resources & property incurred by the fire against the damage to the landscape we create when using retardant, heavy equipment etc.
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