ANGOLA — The Steuben County Lakes Council is standing behind the Indiana Lakes Management Society’s message to Gov. Eric Holcomb to veto a bill that threatens Indiana wetlands.
ILMS is asking Indiana citizens to contact Holcomb via email at govholcomb@gov.in.gov and ask him to veto Senate Enrolled Act 229 (http://iga.in.gov/legislative/2020/bills/senate/229). ILMS, an incorporated not-for-profit agency, promotes the understanding and comprehensive management of Indiana lakes and reservoirs and their watershed ecosystems.
SEA 229 — which would remove the need for an Indiana Department of Environmental Management permit for ditch dredging — was signed by the speaker of the house, Todd Huston, R-Fishers, on Monday. Holcomb must either sign it or veto it in seven days after receiving it. If he makes no action, it will become law on the eighth day.
As of Tuesday, there was no indication that Holcomb had received or acted on the legislation. Many of the other laws passed during this year’s legislative session, which ended last Wednesday, have already been signed.
SEA 229 would allow work on state-regulated drainage ditches without Indiana Department of Environmental Management permits when it pertains to wetlands. The bill was approved largely along party lines, written by Sen. Victoria Spartz, R-Noblesville. An article in the Indianapolis Star suggested the bill was created in concert with Hamilton County Surveyor Kent Ward, possibly to get back at IDEM for a $140,000 fine “to restore a wetlands the county cut down while repairing such a drainage system.”
IDEM, along with several environmental groups, including the Hoosier Environmental Council, the Indiana Wildlife Association and the Sierra Club of Indiana, opposed the bill.
“Twenty-four percent of Indiana’s land used to be wetlands. Most of our wetlands were drained since Indiana’s founding, so they are now closer to 3%,” said Indra Frank, Environmental Health and Water Policy Director for the Hoosier Environmental Council. “Wetlands reduce flooding, purify our rivers and lakes, and provide irreplaceable habitat to wildlife, like birds.”
In 2003, the legislature recognized the value of preserving the remaining wetlands and wrote Indiana’s Isolated Wetlands Law. SEA 229 would exempt reconstruction of drains from the Isolated Wetlands Law.
The legal definition of drain reconstruction includes widening, deepening or "any major change." “In other words, large-scale work that could destroy wetlands,” said Frank.
Current law doesn’t prohibit reconstruction, it requires projects to go through the permitting process to preserve as much wetland as possible and replace what can’t be preserved.
According to Purdue University scientists, Indiana now receives 6.5 inches more precipitation per year than it did when data were first recorded in the 1890s, so the flood protection benefits of wetlands are becoming more and more beneficial to Hoosier welfare.
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