TAKE ACTION: Objections Due Sept. 22 on Lost River, Another Heavy-Handed White Mountain Logging Project
- Chris Gish
- 3 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Join us in submitting an objection on or before September 22nd — especially if submitted an earlier comment. Below we give you an overview of the project, the comment process, and our top concerns.
Get the cut out. That seems to be the clear priority for the White Mountain National Forest, which is pushing ahead with the final public comment period on yet another heavy-handed wildlands logging project. The Lost River Integrated Resource Project makes clear how the Trump Administration and Forest Service leadership want to treat our public lands — more clearcuts, more roadless area logging, and threadbare environmental review. We hope you'll join us in filing objections to the Lost River project on or before September 22, to stand up for a better future for the Lost River area and the White Mountain National Forest as a whole.
The Lost River Project is a plan for 1,093 acres of commercial logging in the Western White Mountains, including over 200 acres of clearcuts. It is just one of at least thirteen commercial logging projects that have been proposed or implemented in the White Mountain National Forest over the last decade – a list that also includes the Peabody West, Tarleton, and Sandwich projects.
Despite over 150 concerned comments filed so far, the logging plans for Lost River have not changed at all from the earlier version of the project. The cuts would impact 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 objection period for the Lost River Project, which is the last chance the public has to weigh in on the project, is open through the end of the day on Monday, September 22.
Submitting your Objection
Check out our top concerns with the project below, and see the Environmental Assessment for the (minimal) analysis the Forest Service has done on the project. Note that Forest Service guidelines suggest that “issues raised in objections must be based on previously submitted timely, specific written comments regarding the proposed project unless based on new information arising after designated comment opportunities.” If you submitted a previous comment, you can refer to that and point out how the final Environmental Assessment does not respond to the concerns you already raised. And, feel free to comment on new information that has come up since the close of the previous comment period, including the carbon report and recent studies listed below under point 3.
Top Concerns
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 (NLEB). This endangered bat can’t afford to lose any more of its habitat, especially on public lands where logging is easily avoided. The Forest Service Biological Evaluation admits there is a known NLEB hibernaculum only 0.15 miles away from the project area — and Northern Long-eared bats are known to forage and roost in a wide area beyond their winter home.
The Lost River IRP does not adequately account for negative impacts on carbon and the climate, but claims that logging will benefit both climate mitigation and climate resilience. In response to previous comments, the Forest Service added a "Carbon Report" to the project, which estimates that this single project will release 72,123 metric tons of CO2eq from above-ground carbon pools alone – the equivalent of almost 17,000 gas-powered vehicles driven for a year. The Forest Service goes on to suggest, contrary to reams of up-to-date science, that logged forests will be more resilient to climate change, and that "ecosystem carbon stored in soils...and other pools are [sic] not likely to be affected by the proposed action" (EA, p. 30). 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 environmental assessment is brief, unsubstantiated, and conclusory. In numerous sections, the Forest Service leans on threadbare, illogical, 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. 28-29), 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, their existing condition, or the increased extreme precipitation expected from climate change. The Forest Service considers no alternatives to their planned timber harvests beside a "no-action" alternative which they cursorily discuss in half a page (p. 17). This discussion amounts to a concoction of contradictory, unsupported claims. On the one hand, the Forest Service notes that without logging, "old growth characteristics would develop over time", but on the other, it claims that "the landscape would trend toward a homogeneous even-aged structure and species mix." These two claims are in direct contradiction to each other — the WMNF's own definitions of Old Growth Forest and Old Forest Habitat emphasize that old forests are characterized by structural complexity and age diversity, not any kind of "homogeneous even-aged structure."
