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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA federal judge has issued an order largely vacating a U.S. Forest Service plan to control vegetation in the Hoosier National Forest that prompted lawsuits over concerns about its impact on nearby Lake Monroe.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said the plan known as the Houston South Vegetation Management and Restoration Project should be vacated except for a few restoration activities to improve water quality. Those include replacing culverts and reconstructing a road.
The entire project involved logging, clearcutting, herbicide use, and some controlled burns. Its goal was to promote the long-term health of the forest by treating the vegetation.
But a legal fight developed starting in 2020 over whether the federal agency had properly considered the project’s impact on Lake Monroe, a source of drinking water for more than 145,000 people.
Pratt noted in her order filed last week that three lawsuits had been filed challenging the project. Plaintiffs including the Friends of Lake Monroe had argued that vacating the project was appropriate due to highly erodible soil near the lake and diminishing water quality.
The plaintiffs and the court found the forest service “failed to adequately evaluate any type of impact on Lake Monroe,” according to the order.
The forest service had issued an environmental assessment of the project in 2019 and then a finding of no significant impact the next year. It decided to proceed without a more detailed environmental impact statement.
The forest service noted, according to Pratt’s order, that plaintiff claims in the litigation focused on the project’s cumulative impacts, and the National Environmental Policy Act no longer requires it to consider such impacts due to changes made earlier this year.
But Pratt said in the order that she found, in agreeing with the plaintiffs, “that the Forest Service failed to adequately evaluate any type of impact on Lake Monroe, whether cumulative, indirect, or direct.”
The forest service did not respond Thursday afternoon to a request for further comment from The Indiana Lawyer.
Sherry Mitchell-Bruker, president of Friends of Lake Monroe, said the nonprofit looks forward to partnering with the forest service to protect water quality.
“I trust that Judge Pratt’s third ruling has ended this long and unnecessary legal battle, in which the court has consistently held that Hoosier National Forest has not met the legal requirements necessary to implement the project,” she said in an e-mailed statement.
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