A judge ruled Friday that the chemical retardant was dumped on the wildfires US Forest Service pollutes streams in western states in violation of federal law, but said it can continue to be used to fight fires.
This was followed by a decision by US District Judge Dana Christensen in Montana environmentalists sued the government for dropping red slimy material into waterways hundreds of times over the past decade.
Government officials say chemical fire retardants are sometimes critical to slowing a dangerous fire. Over the past two decades, wildfires in North America have become larger and more destructive.
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plane lays a fire line between a wildfire and homes in a dry, heavily wooded area of ​​the Black Forest northeast of Colorado Springs.
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Over the past decade, more than 200 shipments of retardants have entered waterways. Federal officials say such situations typically occur by mistake and in less than 1% of the thousands of shipments each year.
The Oregon group Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics argued in its a lawsuit filed last year that the Forest Service is flouting the Clean Water Act by continuing to use retardants without taking adequate precautions to protect streams and rivers,
A coalition that includes Paradise, Calif., where a 2018 wildfire killed 85 people and destroyed a town, said a court order to end the retardant’s use would put lives, homes and forests at risk.
