The checkerspot butterfly is one of 45 species in danger of eradication due to toxins in fire retardant. Photo © Tom Kogut, U.S. Forest Service

What Forest Service action threatens the survival of 45 plant and animal species coast-to-coast in your National Forests? What government practice kills salmon, trout, sturgeon, yellow-legged frogs, checkerspot butterflies, paintbrush, buckwheat and bluegrass? Answer: The dumping of up to 30 million gallons of toxic chemicals in our public forests and waters every year.

Thanks to a lawsuit by FSEEE, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently admitted that toxic chemicals dumped on forest fires threaten the existence of dozens of federally protected species of plants and wildlife. In the two most comprehensive Endangered Species Act opinions in history, both agencies exhaustively documented the environmental threat posed by these chemicals.

The NMFS found that chemical fire retardant is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of 26 of our nation’s most imperiled fish species. The FWS analysis painted the same grim picture for scores of threatened plants.

What did the Forest Service make of these warnings? First, it dug in its heels and tried to ignore the facts altogether. That position earned Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Rey a trip to Missoula, Montana, to face contempt of court charges from federal judge Donald Molloy. Here’s what the judge had to say:

“The Forest Service has, throughout these proceedings, evidenced a strategy of circumventing, rather than complying with, NEPA and ESA. The apparent pattern suggests a strategy of looking for ways to avoid the law’s mandate as opposed to looking for a means of complying with the law.”

Judge Molloy then threatened to incarcerate Mark Rey “in a correctional facility” or place him “under house arrest subject to electronic monitoring” to force the Forest Service to complete the required environmental analysis of the risks these toxic chemicals pose to the environment.

That got the Forest Service’s attention—but only long enough for it to declare that there is no significant harm from dumping these millions of gallons of chemicals onto our National Forests, including in pristine wilderness areas. Forget the twenty thousand fish killed at Fall River near Bend, Oregon, in 2002. Ignore the catastrophic effect that over-zealous fire suppression has had on the ecology of our native forests. Disregard the noxious weeds that thrive where these chemicals are used.

After all, according to the Forest Service, there’s an ongoing 100-year war against nature’s forest fires. Wars mean collateral damage. Winning is everything, no matter the cost. And that cost has spiraled so far out of control that it now consumes half the Forest Service’s budget. No wonder Forest Service campgrounds and trails have fallen into disrepair and are being closed at a rate never before seen. The Forest Service has bankrupted itself in an endless, pointless, and unwinnable war against nature.

Five years ago, FSEEE launched a legal and public education campaign to end the 100-year war on wildfire. We won in court, proving for the first time that our nation’s environmental laws do regulate forest firefighting.

Now we are back in court in the second phase of our strategy. This new lawsuit seeks a nationwide environmental impact statement that tells the truth to the public about the environmental harm that comes from the war on nature’s fire. People need to know that when our government puts out 99% of all fires, regardless of the risk to people’s homes, that our forests, wildlife and fisheries suffer the long-term consequences.

Fire is a natural part of forest ecosystems. Fire thins trees, rejuvenates vegetation for wildlife, and recycles and replenishes soil nutrients. Some tree species, like lodgepole pine, require fire for regeneration. Many species of birds flourish—and some require—fire to create dead trees for nesting and insect foraging.

It’s time for a truce, an armistice, in the war against fire. But the Forest Service isn’t interested in replacing its war with conscientious, responsible fire management. Why? Money. Congress will always write a blank check for war. The war against fire pours billions of dollars into local economies desperate for the federal pork spending.

The war against fire has replaced the war against forests, aka logging, as the Forest Service’s raison d’être. Firefighting has become such a sacred cow that few are willing to speak up and expose the idiocy. Few are willing to say, “Stop the war!” FSEEE is one of those few.

Having established in our first lawsuit that our nation’s environmental laws apply to firefighting, our second case seeks to use those laws to change where, when, how and why we fight forest fires. We are asking Judge Molloy to set aside the Forest Service’s ludicrous claim that dumping 40 million gallons of toxic retardant and all the actions connected to that dumping (such as bulldozing fire lines as wide as freeways through wilderness areas) “will not have a significant impact.” Of course it will—it already has!

In fact, no less an authority than Mark Rey explained the problem to Congress as follows:

“Aggressive fire suppression was effective but had an unintended consequence. The frequency and intensity of wildfires appears to have increased due to the buildup of fuels such as dead and dying trees and dense growth of flammable vegetation. Fire exclusion resulted in woody species encroachment into shrublands and grasslands, altered wildlife diversity and populations through habitat modification, and increased disease and insect infestations. This build up of fuel coupled with other factors like drought have raised increasing concerns about the overall wildland condition and particularly the health of the forest and rangelands.”

The Forest Service fought our first lawsuit tooth-and-nail, even risking jail time for its boss Mark Rey to avoid complying with the law. The Forest Service will fight this second lawsuit even more passionately to defend its multi-billion dollar cash cow. The war against fire is obscenely profitable for the Forest Service. Congress is willing to write the agency a blank check when it comes to firefighting.

For 10,000 years, North American people lived in harmony with fire. Indigenous people used fire as their major forest management tool, keeping forests healthy and wildlife populations productive. Some early Forest Service workers sought to emulate native burning practices, but were ridiculed and ostracized by the bureaucracy.

It is time to end the dumping of toxic chemicals in our streams. It is time to end the willy-nilly bulldozing of massive roads into our nation’s wilderness. It is time to end the expensive and self-defeating war against fire. It is time that we learned to live with fire and nature.

Please, help FSEEE continue to reform the Forest Service’s firefighting machine. We need to restore fire as a natural process to our nation’s wild lands. There is no more important task for us if we want truly healthy forests for our children and grandchildren.

P.S. You can make a donation for this project here at our secure website. Click on “Donate Now!” in the left-hand column, then click on “Stop Species Eradication and the Use of Toxic Chemicals.”