Proposed Hoosier National Forest plan has flaws

I am writing to comment on the proposed revisions to the National Forest Service management plan that will direct what sort of management is allowed on the Hoosier National Forest for the next 10 to 15 years. This plan has numerous flaws, the most significant of which is a bias toward commercial logging. The proposed alternative for the Hoosier Forest calls for a 13,000 acre clear cut under the guise of early successional habitat regeneration and salvage logging. The plan ignores or outright denies that the commercial logging program will have any significant effect on watersheds or simply explains that the Forest Service will "manage" away any negative consequences. This omission is in clear violation of the 1911 Week's Act which allowed for the establishment of the National Forests to protect watersheds. \nI am also concerned that proposed management activities such as clear cutting, herbicide and pesticide spraying and controlled burning threaten endangered species such as the Indiana Bat, the Grey Bat, the Fanshell Mussel and Bald Eagle. Again, the proposed plan fails to adequately analyze exactly how these actions will affect these species and what the costs will be, even though it is a known fact that endangered species carry extremely high existence values for people all over the nation.\nIn addition to environmental and ecological consequences, the proposed plan will also yield economic implications. American tax payers are responsible for subsidizing the logging of the Hoosier National Forest by paying for the roads to be built to logging areas and paying forest service employees to take a timber inventory of areas to be logged. The timber sale is then auctioned out at below market costs deflating the price a local land owner could receive for their timber on private land. It is also important to note that logging does not create jobs. In reality, Indiana receives far more revenue from the recreational value of the forest, which supports many local Indiana businesses and for non-forest products such as morel mushrooms.\nI do not support continued and expanded commercial logging and heavy extraction activities that impair the long-term health of the forest. The public comment period is open on the Hoosier National Forest until June 27 and I would like to urge citizens to write the Forest Service, addressing their concerns of the new proposed Forest Management Plan. They can be reached on the Web at www.fs.fed.us/r9/hoosier/forestplaninfo.htm.