Last Saturday, on a bitterly cold and snowy day, I attended a rally with 100 other Vermonters at the Vermont headquarters of the U.S. Forest Service to call for a stop to the destructive Telephone Gap logging project.

The U.S. Forest Service has approved a draft plan to cut nearly 11,000 acres of forest in the Telephone Gap area of Vermont, including 800 acres of old growth forest.

These old growth and mature trees are an incredible resource. They sequester more carbon than younger trees, help reduce flooding, and create important wildlife habitat. Logging in these fragile areas means adding roads to wilderness areas, leading to the fragmentation of important wildlife corridors as well as increasing human access to and intrusion on wilderness areas. The carbon released in this plan would be equivalent to the carbon produced in a year by 60,000 automobiles.

For more information on logging in National Forests, go online to www.standingtrees.org/threats-to-public-forests,

There is still time to stop this project. Anyone can send a public comment on this project directly to the Forest Service. The deadline for the comment period is this Friday, Jan. 17. Here is the link for the public comment form: cara.fs2c.usda.gov/Public//CommentInput?Project=60192.

It’s also important to contact our D.C. delegation: Sanders, Welch,= and Balint by this Friday, Jan. 17, and leave a short message.

• Rep. Balint: call 202-225-4115.

• Sen. Sanders: call 202-224-5141.

• Sen. Welch: call 202-224-4242.

Please join me, and many other concerned Vermonters, in calling for permanent protections for our National Forest.

Fran Putnam

Weybridge