"The U.S. Forest Service is weighing tighter restrictions on aerial fire retardant drops as part of a long-running legal battle over the environmental effects of pouring millions of gallons of the chemical mixture on Western wildlands every year.

Retardant use has soared in recent decades as wildfires have grown larger and more houses have been built on the wildland edge. Nationally, federal and state agencies apply an average of more than 28 million gallons a year, the vast majority of it in the West and much of that in California.

Nearly a third of the retardant used by the Forest Service in the last decade has been in California, where urban development abuts fire-prone wildlands and weather and terrain regularly produce monster blazes.

The proposed limits, outlined in a recently released environmental document, are not expected to cut overall usage. Rather, they are intended to reduce drops on and near waterways, where they can kill fish, and to slightly expand the acreage that is off limits to retardant releases for ecological reasons."

Bettina Boxall reports for the Los Angeles Times May 30, 2011. [2]

"The proposed limits are intended to reduce drops on and near waterways, where they can kill fish, and to slightly expand the acreage that is off limits to retardant releases for ecological reasons."

"Westinghouse Electric Co. and U.S. regulators are wrangling over statements made about the safety of the AP1000 nuclear reactor design, which could be used in at least 14 proposed reactors in the United States."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has decided that the declining Atlantic populations of the bluefin tuna do not warrant endangered species protection for now.

"Concerned about the threat of a catastrophic outbreak of a herpes virus among wild horse herds in the West, national animal advocates on Thursday called on the federal government to keep potentially infected domestic horses away from mustangs and burros on public lands."

"At Chevron's annual general meeting Wednesday, the oil giant's chief executive John Watson, the Board of Directors and shareholders were greeted by over 150 activists, who traveled to San Ramon from throughout the world. They came from Angola, Indonesia, Nigeria, Alaska and Ecuador to share their stories of the human and environmental degradation Chevron had unleashed in their communities."

"Shareholders of Massey Energy Co. asked a judge on Thursday to block the company's pending acquisition unless they are allowed to pursue claims that company directors ignored safety for profits and should be held accountable for a mine explosion that killed 29 workers last year."

"In the first substantive hearing of the consolidated litigation over last year's Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, corporate defendants told U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier Thursday that claims for economic damage, claims by first responders who got sick from cleaning up the oil, and suits by environmental advocacy groups should be dismissed."

Conservative claims that endangered species protections for the 2-inch-long desert pupfish are endangering the lives of U.S. Border Patrol agents flunk the fact-check test, according to a federal official in Arizona.

"A bidding war is heating up among users of corn in the United States as livestock feeders and ethanol makers scramble to lock in supplies before extremely low stocks run dry by this summer."