Environmental groups sue over Portland tear gas use

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Night after night in Portland, tear gas and other crowd control devices have enveloped protesters and bystanders in airborne chemicals that settle on the ground, later to be washed into storm drains.

Amid allegations that people’s health and the environment are suffering the consequences, five environmental groups on Tuesday sued the Department of Homeland Security.

The federal lawsuit says the U.S. government violated federal environmental law by deploying “an unprecedented amount of dangerous chemical weapons” without analyzing and documenting their environmental impacts beforehand, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from federal authorities.

With the city experiencing some of the most sustained Black Lives Matter protests in the country, efforts by local officials and researchers are underway to determine whether, and how, people and the environment are being affected.

Cyanide and heavy metals such as chromium and zinc were found by Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services at much higher levels in stormwater catch basins alongside a protest site than elsewhere in the city, the bureau said in a report last month.

Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality noted that “the repeated deployment of tear gas in downtown Portland has led to elevated levels of certain contaminants” in stormwater drains. But spokeswoman Susan Mills said the concentrations found in stormwater catch basins “are not likely high enough to cause immediate impacts to the environment.”

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