BLOOMINGTON — A federal judge issued an injunction Wednesday barring the U.S. Forest Service from beginning planned burns in the Hoosier National Forest this weekend.
Judge Tanya Walton Pratt, who issued the order, ruled the Forest Serviced failed to take a “hard look” at the consequences of the planned burn.
Monroe County commissioners and the Hoosier Environmental Council along with the Indiana Forest Alliance, sued the Forest Service, saying the controlled burns were scheduled on slopey areas that would drain into Lake Monroe and would cause “significantly exacerbate the degradation of these waters and threaten public health safety and reactional interests in the Lake Monroe watershed” which provides drinking water for near 150,000 Hoosiers.
The lawsuit accuses the Forest Service of violating multiple environmental acts when it chose to move forward with the project in the Lake Monroe watershed.
The project has been a point of contention in the area for several months. Locals and environmentalists have called for it to be relocated outside of the watershed into other areas of the forest.
The Forest Service plans to hold three burns covering 3,500 acres of the Hoosier National Forest this year, with up to 13,000 acres over a 10-to-15-year period, the largest of its kind ever completed in the Hoosier National Forest.
