Workforce reductions at the Forest Service may be making one of the agency’s continual challenges — responding to lawsuits — all the more difficult.
That’s one conclusion from the Trump administration’s request last week for more time to respond to a lawsuit alleging that toxic metals in aerial fire retardant pose health risks to endangered species.
The Justice Department on Friday in a letter asked lawyers for Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics for a two-month extension to review the group’s latest lawsuit on fire retardant citing “current workload and staffing constraints” at the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and NOAA Fisheries.
At issue is a lawsuit FSEEE filed in May in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, demanding that the federal agencies acknowledge the presence of toxic metals in fire retardant and conduct appropriate biological evaluations. The metals include cadmium, selenium and chromium, according to the lawsuit.
