INDIANAPOLIS — On Wednesday, the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, Indiana Forest Alliance, Hoosier Environmental Council and Friends of Lake Monroe filed suit against the US Forest Service (USFS) seeking to block the implementation of their Houston South Vegetation Management and Restoration Project.
This lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, is the third lawsuit local government and environmental organizations have been forced to file against USFS related to the Houston South project. In the previous lawsuits, the court found that USFS violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and ordered the USFS to examine the project’s impacts to Lake Monroe. USFS has ignored these court orders and is attempting to push forward with the project as is, without any changes to the project design.
“Lake Monroe is the sole drinking water source for 145,000 people and a major recreational resource for Monroe County and the entire state of Indiana. We need to improve water quality in the lake, not degrade it.” states Sherry Mitchell Bruker, President of the Friends of Lake Monroe.
Monroe County Board of Commissioners President Julie Thomas said this new lawsuit is necessary to stop the destructive impact this project would cause to Lake Monroe and the surrounding area.
“Once again, we are forced to take the Forest Service to court for failing to examine the impact this destructive project will have on Lake Monroe,” said Thomas. “The Forest Service is trying to log, burn, build roads through and spray pesticides on thousands of acres of exceedingly steep, hilly ground, just as they first proposed back in 2018, without a single change or any data or information indicating the project will not harm Lake Monroe and public health.”
In addition to the USFS’s failure to properly examine the impacts to Lake Monroe, the lawsuit claims the Forest Service is violating NEPA by failing to complete an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Houston South Project, which is the largest logging and burning project in the history of the HNF.
“The sheer size of the project, its potentially major adverse impact on the largest municipal surface water supply in southern Indiana, its destruction of endangered bat habitat, and clear contravention of President Biden’s Executive Order 14072 to protect mature and old-growth forests necessitate that an EIS be prepared to examine less harmful alternatives to the project,” said Hoosier Environmental Council Senior Policy Director David Van Gider.
“If the Forest Service had their way, the solitude and serenity of an island of wild nature found nowhere else in the entire lower Midwest, will be transformed into a roaring hellscape of chainsaws, bulldozers, skidders and feller bunchers for the next 12 years and potentially longer,” said Indiana Forest Alliance Executive Director Jeff Stant. “These impacts and the USFS’s repeated efforts to ignore court orders are a betrayal of the public’s trust and increase the urgency to stop this destructive project before it begins.”
The full text of the Sept. 11, 2024 lawsuit can be found here.
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About Indiana Forest Alliance: The Indiana Forest Alliance (IFA) is a non-profit, statewide
organization founded in 1996 dedicated to preserving and restoring Indiana’s native hardwood forest ecosystem.
https://indianaforestalliance.org/
About Friends of Lake Monroe: Friends of Lake Monroe (FLM) was created in 2016 by Sherry Mitchell-Bruker to support water quality and sustainable recreation in Southern Indiana’s Lake Monroe.
https://www.friendsoflakemonroe.org/
About Hoosier Environmental Council: Hoosier Environmental Council (HEC) works to advance environmental health & justice, protect land & water & accelerate climate action
About Monroe County Board of Commissioners: The Monroe County Board of Commissioners are an elected body of local government with a wide range of executive and administrative authority.
https://www.co.monroe.in.us/commissioners/
The plaintiffs are represented in this lawsuit by the public interest law firm Eubanks & Associates, PLLC.
