Judge threatens jail for Bush official over fire retardant

[depakid]

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge in Montana said Friday he's prepared to hold the U.S. Forest Service in contempt of court for a "duplicitous" strategy of skirting the law so it can keep fighting wildfires with retardant that kills fish.

Judge Donald W. Molloy set a Feb. 26 hearing in U.S. District Court in Missoula to give the Forest Service a chance to convince him that Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey should not be put in jail and fire retardant drops from aircraft be stopped nationwide until the agency properly considers the dangers to the environment.

"The Forest Service, throughout these proceedings, evidenced a strategy of circumventing, rather than complying with," the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, the judge wrote. "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.

"In my view, the Forest Service is in contempt of the law and the prior orders of this court. Nonetheless, a hearing is appropriate before reaching a final conclusion on that issue."

The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit brought by Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics after fire retardant dropped in Fall Creek in Central Oregon in 2002 killed 20,000 fish.

More: http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/news-22/1200087280115560.xml&storylist=orlocal&thispage=1

[Vincardog]

1. Good for this judge.

[philb]

2. Fire Retardant ScotchGuard taken off market because toxic ingredient caused lots of autism,ADHD

3M took one of its highest selling items, ScotchGuard, off the market when it was shown that most children of the last decade had high levels of highly toxic antimony, an ingredient in ScotchGuard. Autism treatment clinics consistently were finding high levels of antimony in autistic children.
Along with high levels of mercury/ thimerosal.
When the kids were treated by detoxification starting at a young age, they typically recover or signif. improve.

[LeftyMom]

5. Oh jeez, not more autism woo (keep that crap in the health lounge, please)

Scotchgard was reformulated (not taken off the market) because one of the primary ingredients was a probable carcinogen. The ingredient was replaced with another that breaks down more rapidly in the body. Neither ingredient contains antimony.

For that matter, neither is at all associated with this aerial firefighting chemical, ammonium phosphate.

[Massacure]

6. If the fire retardant is ammonium phosphate, it probably causes eutrophication then?

Ammonium has nitrogen, and phosphate has phosphorus. Those tend to cause algae blooms, and when the algae dies, the decomposition sucks up all the oxygen, killing the fish.

[LeftyMom]

7. I'm guessing that's the problem.

[rodeodance]

3. hey Judge---go to the WH--do your thing there also

[malakai2]

4. Awesome

I have other reasons for not liking Mark Rey, but if he's marched off to jail for contempt on this, I'll cheer just the same.