Despite worries, the Forest Service will begin a project in Indiana

Bloomington, Indiana – Despite worries that the project could contaminate the drinking water supply used by more than 100,000 people, the U.S. Forest Service is moving forward with plans to log or perform controlled burns in some areas of the Hoosier National Forest.

In 2020, environmental organizations and government representatives in Monroe County, Indiana, filed a lawsuit against the federal agency, claiming it had broken the law by moving through with logging and controlled burns on more than 15,000 acres in northwest Jackson County.

The project’s detractors are concerned that it would degrade the Lake Monroe reservoir’s water quality, which supplies drinking water to nearly 120,000 people and the entire neighboring Monroe County.

Although a federal judge temporarily halted the project last April after finding that the forest service failed to “fully evaluate the environmental effects to Lake Monroe,” a later forest service report found that no corrections or revisions were needed to its initial environmental assessment.

The Hoosier National Forest, which covers nearly 204,000 acres across nine southern Indiana counties, was the site of the announcement made by the forest service in early December that it intended to move forward with the project, according to The Indianapolis Star.

The argument put forth by opponents is that the current study from the forest service fails to address their worries that the logging and burning operations will result in nutrient contamination, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus, seeping into the lake and possibly causing toxic algal blooms.

“We’re very upset about this,” said Jeff Stant, executive director of the Indiana Forest Alliance, one of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs. “We don’t think they’ve complied. It’s gross noncompliance.”

The Hoosier National Forest’s district ranger, Chris Thornton, disagrees. Concerns regarding the project had previously been addressed in the service’s initial report, he claimed in a letter dated Dec. 5 to the federal court, and “no further information or clarification was needed.”

“We are issuing the (report) not because we concede that our initial analysis was lacking but to comply with the District Court order and move forward with implementation,” the federal agency said in its report.

The paper claims that the forest service will take measures to mitigate any negative effects while logging and controlled burns are conducted and that delaying the project could cause the oak-hickory ecosystems of the forest to decrease and the landscape to become less diverse. The project’s objective is to “increase the resiliency and structure of forested areas,” it is said.

Friends of Lake Monroe is one of the organizations that is opposed to the forest service’s plan. In a letter to Thornton, its president, Sherry Mitchell-Bruker, stated that the lake’s watershed must remain intact and that logging and burning are not permitted if there are to be any “significant impacts” to Lake Monroe.

According to Stant, the project’s opponents have met and are considering whether to pursue further legal action.