What is wrong with this log4j servlet running in weblogic?

[Keith]

Hello,

I have a simple log4j servlet that creates a logger and
appender....loads on startup from the web.xml..... I have jsp pages
that grab the logger and write to the log.... everything works fine
EXCEPT that when I redeploy the application, then I get the error below
in the system log:

log4j:ERROR Attempted to append to closed appender named [null].


Here is my initServlet:

import java.io.*;
import javax.servlet.*;
import javax.servlet.http.*;

import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
import org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout;
import org.apache.log4j.Level;
import org.apache.log4j.SimpleLayout;
import org.apache.log4j.FileAppender;


public class InitLogger extends HttpServlet {

FileAppender appender = null;

public void init() throws ServletException {
try {

String logPath = getInitParameter("LOGPATH");
String logLevel = getInitParameter("LOGLEVEL");
Logger logger = Logger.getLogger("HRADS");
String pattern = "%d{ISO8601}-%C:%m %n";
PatternLayout layout = new PatternLayout(pattern);

if (logLevel == null) {
logLevel = "/tmp/HRADS.log";
}
appender = new FileAppender(layout, logPath, true);
logger.addAppender(appender);
if (logLevel != null) {
if (logLevel.equals("DEBUG")) {
logger.setLevel((Level) Level.DEBUG);
} else {
logger.setLevel((Level) Level.INFO);
}
} else {
logger.setLevel((Level) Level.INFO);
}
;

logger.debug("[---------STARTING LOGGER----------]");

} catch (Exception e) { }
;

}

public void destroy()
appender.close()


}