Citing federal civil rights law, the Sierra Club and its Glades-based Stop the Burn campaign are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Justice to investigate the Florida Forest Service’s practice of authorizing sugar-cane field fires that send smoke and ash over predominately Black communities while sparing largely white communities from the fires’ effects.
The group’s complaint filed Friday details state policies in place since 1991 to deny the fire permits when winds are blowing east toward Wellington, Royal Palm Beach and Westlake while allowing them when winds are blowing west.