TAKE ACTION: Comment on Lost River, Another Heavy-Handed White Mountain Logging Project
- Chris Gish
- Apr 29
- 3 min read
Join us in submitting a comment on or before May 14th. Below we give you an overview of the project, the comment process, and our top concerns.
Thought the White Mountain National Forest had enough logging on the books already, with the active or soon-to-be active Peabody West, Tarleton, and Sandwich logging projects? Well, the Forest Service is moving ahead with yet another logging proposal — and the vehemently pro-extraction agenda of the Trump Administration makes it more necessary than ever for us to pay attention.
The Lost River Integrated Resource Project is a plan for 1,093 acres of commercial logging, including over 200 acres of clearcuts. It impacts a stunning, wild and less-visited region of the White Mountain National Forest just east of Mount Moosilauke, home to beautiful ponds, lively streams, and habitat for more than a dozen sensitive or imperiled species.
The 30-day public comment period for this project is open until the end of the day on Wednesday, May 14, and outside of the objection period (which generally requires one to have submitted a previous comment to be taken seriously as an objector), is the last official chance to weigh in on this project.
We encourage you to check out the draft Environmental Assessment for the Lost River Project and submit a comment by May 14. In crafting your comment, feel free to include your personal connections to this place. If you have visited the Lost River area or any of the surrounding mountains, if you live in the Pemigewasset watershed downstream, or if you are concerned about climate change and the precedent that this project's cursory analysis sets for other public lands, say so. If you don’t have much time to write a detailed message debunking each of the Forest Service’s questionable claims, that is totally ok! A few heartfelt sentences is enough to get your concerns on the record and continue building the movement against ill-advised logging projects like this.
Especially in a time when Trump and his allies are doing their best to roll back environmental review on public lands, it’s essential to let land managers know that we are paying attention, and will hold them accountable to the public interest. Here are some of our top concerns for this project:
More than 91% of all proposed logging in the Lost River IRP is within two Inventoried Roadless Areas: one on the slopes of majestic Mt Moosilauke, and one surrounding beautiful Elbow Pond. Logging in roadless areas threatens water quality and floodwater retention, as well as habitat for interior forest species. No logging should ever occur in Inventoried Roadless Areas, period. These are among the wildest places left in New England and should be permanently protected.
The US Forest Service admits that the project is "Likely to Adversely Affect" the endangered Northern Long-eared Bat. This endangered bat can’t afford to lose any more of its habitat, especially on public lands where logging is easily avoided.
The Lost River IRP fails to account for negative impacts on carbon and the climate, but claims that logging will benefit both climate mitigation and climate resilience. The Forest Service should revise its assessment to do an accurate analysis of climate and carbon impacts as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
The draft environmental analysis is brief,unsubstantiated, and conclusory. In numerous sections, the Forest Service leans on threadbare and incomplete reasoning — often with no citations to support their claims — that Lost River logging is necessary and would not have significant environmental impacts. In the hydrology section (p. 23), for example, the Forest Service concludes that the project would have no impacts on water "quality or quantity" because it does not exceed blanket thresholds for the proportion of an entire watershed that is logged — while including no discussion of the slope of the logged lands or the increase in extreme precipitation due to climate change, both of which certainly impact the chance of negative effects to streams. The Forest Service considers no alternatives to their proposal beside a "no-action" alternative, which they cursorily discuss in half a page (p. 16). This discussion mostly amounts to an ominous claim that, without the proposed logging, "the landscape would trend toward a homogeneous even-aged structure and species mix," while providing no evidence to support this claim.
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