Went to the Huntingburg meeting last night. I own some classified forest land as well as enjoy the state and federal forests. They reviewed the forest plan and allow comments. I spoke on restoring several recreational opportunities in the Harrison Crawford SF. In particular, reopen Stagestop campground with minimal improvement, repair dam at Wyandotte lake and improve Blue river access by reopening Stagestop and fixing up the iron bridge ramp.

The single biggest issue I see is money. The state forestry dept lost about one fourth of their budget overnight in 2008/09 when a 100 year tax expired. That took away about $4 mil out of a $12 mil budget. Timber harvest is increasing on state forest lands and the plan is to cut 14 mil board feet per year and that the forest adds 24 mil bf per year in growth, or 60% of total harvestable timber. This is on about 150k total acreage. By comparison, the Hoosier NF caps it's harvest at 5.7 mil bf on 200k acres per the internet.

Lots of folks spoke up, wanting trees to grow old and fall down, no cutting at all. Some loggers were there to explain no use of trees wastes the resource. Others suggest limiting the cutting and horse trail riders generally don't like the logging it seems.

As with anything governmental, it looks like it's all about the money. There are currently 20 vacancies in the staff and they have lost 5 or 6 foresters to other states or the private sector in the last 18 mo. Sounds familiar, right? Very informative meeting on many levels and you get a different perspective on who all these state departments have to work with and try to satisfy.