“Forest Service leaders in the Pacific Northwest have authorized the use of heavy equipment and fire retardant to suppress wildfires in Roadless and Wilderness Areas,” reads a press release from the Forest Service.
“When we approve the use of heavy equipment and retardant in protected areas, it’s because professional firefighters deem it an absolute necessity to protect lives, property, and irreplaceable natural resources like old growth,” said Regional Forester Jacqueline Buchanan.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 established the parameters for wilderness areas for multiple federal agencies, yet the Forest Service has decided that it will single-handedly override an Act of Congress based on the agency’s own fear-mongering about fire, a key natural element of a healthy forest.
The press release continues, “Aerial retardant drops are not allowed in mapped avoidance areas for threatened, endangered, proposed, and candidate species, identified cultural resources, or in waterways.”
If the Forest Service had kept toxic retardant out of waterways instead of dumping hundreds of loads into streams, FSEEE would not have sued successfully to enforce the Clean Water Act.
