This letter is presented in the hope that you will communicate its message to our delegation (Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch, Becca Balint) in the U.S. House and Senate. Their support, and yours, is needed to put an end to a disastrous project that is planned for the Telephone Gap area in the Green Mountain National Forest near Pittsford. The U.S. Forest Service plans to open this old-growth forest to commercial logging in the near future. It is an area that has not been logged for 75 to 150 years. There are no roads in this forest. It is one of the few remaining areas in the GMNF untouched by the ravages of logging and road building.

Here are some of the effects of the “Telephone Integrated Resource Project” as currently designed:

Based on the Forest Service’s own calculations, this logging project will release 254,556 metric tons of carbon into the Vermont environment. This equates to an additional 59,377 gas powered vehicles being driven in our state for a year.

817 acres of rare old-growth forest will be cut down. Invasive species will be encouraged, interior-dwelling plants and wildlife will be displaced, the contiguous forest habitat will be broken up, the integrity of the soil will be disrupted, and erosion will be exacerbated.

1,800 acres of the 16,000-acre Pittenden Inventoried Roadless Area near Rochester, Vt., will be logged, one of the largest blocks of unprotected wild forest in the entire state of Vermont.

The logging and wood products industry promotes messages that we need to “manage” our forests to make them healthy. The fact is, our forests in the Northeast are slowly recovering from historic aggressive logging. They can return to their former grandeur. If left alone, these forests will provide us with clean water, reduce the impacts of floods, moderate temperatures, sequester and store carbon, and provide us with oxygen. These old forest stands do not exist for the benefit of commercial industry; they exist to benefit us. In fact, they belong to us.

Here is the electronic contact information for Bernie Sanders, Peter Welch and Becca Balint:.

Senator Bernie Sanders:

Senator Peter Welch

Representative Becca Balint

https://balint.house.gov/contact/

In addition, there is an opportunity for the public to comment on this project directly with the Forest Service. The deadline for the comment period is Jan. 17, 2025. Here is the link for the public comment form: https://cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public//CommentInput?Project=60192

Millard Cox

Ripton