Ground Truth Blog
The 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act
The Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (HFRA) establishes a legal framework ostensibly designed to protect communities and watersheds from catastrophic wildfire. The legislation authorizes “hazardous fuels reduction projects” across National Forest and BLM lands....
Retardant Suspected in Polluted Wells
During New Mexico’s largest-ever wildfire — the 2022 Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, slurry bombers made nearly 2,500 retardant drops, primarily Phos-Chek, to combat the blaze. Phos-Chek is the bright red fire retardant featured on news reels to convey a visually...
Implore Your Senators to Oppose HR 3898
The fire retardant lobby wants Congress to amend the Clean Water Act to allow unregulated toxic heavy metal pollutants in fire retardant to be dumped into our nation’s streams and rivers. Most of our nation’s drinking water supplies come from these water sources. If...
Incentivizing Fire-Safe Development
Citing “short-sighted fire suppression policies and the rapid influx of people and development in hazardous regions,” Meghan Hodges argues for incentivizing wildfire-safe developments through fire-hazard mapping coupled with fire-adapted building codes and robust code...
Forest Legacy Management Flexibility Bill
Introduced by California Congressmen John Garamendi (D) and Ken Calvert (R), the Forest Legacy Management Flexibility Bill (H.R.2771) “would give states the option to designate accredited, nonprofit land trusts to hold conservation easements purchased with federal...
Wolves and Forest Health
by Delia Malone Wolves represent wilderness. Colonizers viewed wilderness as a frontier to be conquered and converted into a landscape that mirrored Europe. This meant that wolves had to go. So, as Michael Robinson writes in Predatory Bureaucracy, wolves were killed...
Fire Retardant Leaves Lasting Impacts on Waterways
During the 2020 fire season, retardant-laden slurry bombers were scrambled to attack a small fire in Alberta’s mountains. One payload of Phos-Chek fire retardant was delivered directly into North Racehorse Creek, turning the stream red. University of Alberta...
Secretaries Order Consolidation of Federal Firefighting
The Forest Service and other federal agencies missed the deadline of Sept. 10 to implement President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14308 mandating consolidation of federal firefighting into a single agency in the Department of Interior. A week later, the Secretaries...
Fire Management Team Implicated in ICE Raid
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials interfered with an active wildland firefighting campaign and arrested two men working to contain the Bear Gulch Fire in Washington. As reported by Reuters, the Aug. 27 raid resulted in two firefighters being detained at an...
A Tumultuous Nine Months at the Forest Service
Forest Service employees have endured a tumultuous nine months since Donald Trump returned to the White House. With promises to “shatter the Deep State” and downsize the federal workforce, the president appointed an Office of Management and Budget director who said...
Piñon-Juniper Forests
Piñon-juniper woodlands may not inspire the kind of awe that people experience among the redwoods of California or the old-growth Douglas-fir trees of the Pacific Northwest, but piñon-juniper forests are one of the most extensive ecosystems in western North America...
Monongahela National Forest
Located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, Monongahela National Forest encompasses 921,000 acres, with elevations ranging from just under 1,000 to 4,863 feet above sea level. The Forest includes much of the Potomac Highlands Region and major landform...