Where there’s smoke, there’s fire retardant, at least in some of the hardest-to-reach U.S. wildfire areas. Lately, however, the U.S. Forest Service has had to take a hard look at whether the much-photographed red slurry they use to preserve federal lands from fire is doing more harm than good.

At least one group—and a federal judge—has said that might be the case. U.S. District Judge Donald Malloy has given the USFS until December 2011 to determine if the picturesque retardant, which is a mixture of water and ammonium-based fertilizer, is a threat to fish and plants, according to an Associated Press article.

The ruling, which was handed down in July, comes in response to a lawsuit filed by Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, an environmental group that has been working to limit the use of retardants since 2003. The group contends that fighting fires with water would be equally effective and less damaging to the forest.

“The Forest Service needs to come up with retardant policies that address how, when and where they are going to use retardant, and in a way that fully protects the water, the fish and the rare plants,” FSEEE Executive Director Andy Stahl told the Missoulian. “One sensible thing to do would be to use water to fight fires instead of toxic retardant. What a wonderful idea.”

A previous suit filed by FSEEE resulted in the Forest Service conducting a court-mandated environmental assessment. Molloy's July 2010 ruling addresses concerns that the environmental assessment, which claimed the retardant had insignificant environmental effects, wasn’t vigorous enough. Malloy found that study, plus similar opinions by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, arbitrary and capricious, according to the AP.

The Forest Service maintains that, while protecting wildlife habitat is one of their top concerns, using the retardant is often the best defense, especially in steep or rugged areas or when dealing with large fires. The USFS has to weigh damage from fire as well as retardant, said spokeswoman Jennifer Jones.

"Millions of acres of national forest are at risk of uncharacteristically large and severe wildfires that can cause long-term damage to fish and wildlife habitat as well as humans, and retardant is a useful tool in fire suppression both in the wildlands and near communities," Jones is quoted as saying in the Missoulian.

According to USFS guidelines, retardant cannot be dropped within 300 feet of a waterway. Even when that mark is missed, the Forest Service claimed that over eight years and 128,000 retardant drops there were only 14 cases of slurry harming fish and plants. Stahl said even that is too much.

“If a farmer took a 3,000-gallon truckload of liquefied fertilizer and dumped it in a creek, that farmer would be in jail in a heartbeat,” Stahl told the AP. “But when the Forest Service does it, everybody looks the other way because it is a war on fire.”

The Forest Service plans to release its newest draft environmental impact statement on fire retardant use for public comment soon. Progress updates are available on the USFS Aerial Application of Fire Retardant Web page.