The presence of birds and water fowl, as this photo from last summer shows, makes the Wabashiki Fish and Wildlife Area in West Terre Haute a prime destination for outdoors enthusiasts. Tribune-Star file/Mark Bennett
A stroll along the pedestrian walkway overlooking the Wabashiki Fish and Wildlife Area offers the sight of eagles, egrets and osprey gliding over the wetlands west of Terre Haute.
Hikers, bicyclists, bird-watchers, retirees, young families, kayakers, canoeists, hunters and anglers enjoy the 2,700-acre wildlife preserve.
Such opportunities to experience nature weren’t always possible.
The efforts of scores of advocates helped lead to the preservation of Wabashiki’s diverse ecosystem. But a bold step in 2010 by former Gov. Mitch Daniels — urged by Indiana Department of Natural Resources staff — cemented protections for Wabashiki and thousands of acres of wetlands along the Wabash and Muscatatuck rivers.
Inspired by a book about America’s conservation pioneering 25th president, Theodore Roosevelt, Daniels pushed into existence the Indiana Healthy Rivers Initiative.
It became the largest wildlife conservation project in state history, with the goal of preserving 43,000 acres of watershed land along the Wabash and another 25,600 along the Muscatatuck in southern Indiana.
It requires the state to acquire and restore those wetlands from willing sellers.
Within 10 years, the program had placed 37,848 acres of wetlands under permanent protection, the DNR reported in 2020. That’s more than halfway to the total goal.
The initiative’s economic potential from outdoors tourism, as well as the pure enjoyment of residents, is vast.
Daniels made that historic move near the close of his second term. It was one of several out-of-the-box ventures by Indiana’s 49th governor, along with capping property taxes, implementing controversial school reforms and privatizing public services. Those latter actions by the Republican governor and his frugal approach to state government operations still effect Indiana a decade after he left office in 2013, and will be debated for years to come.
But the Healthy Rivers Initiative will benefit Hoosiers and visitors for decades, just like Roosevelt’s expansion of America’s national parks system.
Earlier this week, Daniels — recently retired after a decade as Purdue University’s president — announced he’d decided against running for Indiana’s U.S. Senate seat, currently held by Mike Braun, who will run for governor in 2024 as his term ends.
It’s likely, maybe even certain, that a Republican will win that Senate seat, given Indiana’s political leanings. It’s unimaginable that other Republicans eyeing the job would embrace such a conservationist idea as Daniels’ expansion of wetlands protections. The only declared candidate, U.S. House Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana’s 3rd District, has the worst rating among the state’s 11 members of Congress on the League of Conservation Voters Environmental Scorecard. It shows Banks has cast just two “pro-environment” votes out of 143 on environmental issues since 2017, well below Indiana’s other six House Republicans, two House Democrats and two Senate Republicans. Donald Trump has given Banks his “complete and total endorsement.”
Current Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, should he seek that U.S. Senate seat as his second term ends in 2024, would more closely resemble Daniels’ pre-Trump (or post-Trump) brand of moderate Republican conservatism that targets efficiency rather than extremism. Holcomb, for example, attended the United Nations climate talks in Egypt in November, much to the displeasure of far-right groups that dismiss serious efforts to curb climate change as “woke-ism.”
Those same groups cheered earlier this week when Daniels decided a U.S. Senate seat was “not the job for me.”
There was a time when Indiana Republicans could lead nationally in efforts for conservation. William Ruckelshaus served as the Environmental Protection Agency director under presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, and oversaw the banning of DDT in American agriculture, took on irresponsible corporations polluting waterways and forced U.S. cities to stop dumping sewage into rivers and creeks. Ruckelshaus’ primary tool was the Clean Water Act of 1970, passed by Congress with only one opposing vote in the U.S. House and Senate.
Sadly, that couldn’t happen today, and Ruckelshaus would be excommunicated from the present-day Republican Party for championing such causes.
On Wednesday, Daniels told the Tribune-Star via email that environmental policies remain important to him. As is the case with politics, those objectives would rankle groups on both ends of the political spectrum.
“Absolutely, meeting environmental challenges must be an important part of the national agenda these next few years,” Daniels said in his email response to questions Wednesday afternoon.
“We have to deal with a changing climate in smart ways that meaningfully moderate warming without impoverishing the peoples of the U.S. or the world’s developing economies,” Daniels added. “[Also,] developing carbon-free nuclear power is one critical priority, as are the emerging technologies of adaptation and mitigation.
“And we must take advantage, as Indiana has in recent years, of opportunities to conserve and protect the natural beauty and open spaces with which America remains uniquely blessed,” he concluded.
Indiana’s wetlands, the Wabash River watershed and Wabashiki are examples of such beauty in a state that, nonetheless, still struggles with pollution in its streams and air.
In a 2020 event in Terre Haute, the local Riverscape organization honored Daniels and the 10-year anniversary of the Healthy Rivers Initiative, which also was launched in Terre Haute a decade earlier. Daniels credited Wabash Valley Riverscape, a group advocating for enhancements along the Wabash, and explained the program’s vision.
“The best organization in the state, [with] the biggest potential was here with Riverscape,” Daniels said. “So, we chose The Landing here as our place to announce, first of all, the statewide program, and secondly the Wabash corridor, of which the Wabashiki reserve was core. And the Riverscape organization really was the driver.
“Ten years later, there’s phenomenal progress,” he added. “[We’re] more than halfway, to our ultimate goal and dream of the longest continuous wetland in the Eastern U.S.”
Indiana could use a senator that would prioritize such things.
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