Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission overhaul clears Indiana Senate

By Patrick Guinane, Times of Northwest Indiana
patrick.guinane@nwi.com

INDIANAPOLIS | The Indiana Senate voted 47-1 Monday to let Gov. Mitch Daniels reconstitute the Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission.

Legislators created the 11-member commission 28 years ago to oversee construction of about 25 miles of protective levees along the river from Gary to the Illinois border. Fall flooding that damaged more than 4,000 homes along uncompleted portions of the levees spurred the legislative effort to replace the current commission with five gubernatorial appointees.

Region legislators have billed the commission overhaul, House Bill 1716, as the key to unlocking up to $15 million in state money needed to complete the levee project.

"We're trying to fund the Little Calumet project, and we're not quite done yet," Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said Monday. "But obviously the worse (the state budget picture) gets, the more that any project is put in question."

Kenley's comments came the same day as new figures showing that state tax collections took a $157 million nose-dive last month, falling 15 percent below what the state collected in March 2008. On Thursday, Kenley will a unveil the Senate version of a new two-year state budget.

Sen. Frank Mrvan, D-Hammond, said lawmakers are considering putting the Indiana Department of Natural Resources in charge of maintaining the Little Calumet River levees once the project is complete.

The bill's author, Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, said lawmakers likely will wait until next year to decide who is responsible for the levee maintenance.

Soliday said he probably won't agree to minor changes the Senate made to the levee legislation, meaning the measure would head to a House-Senate conference committee to work out a final version before lawmakers' April 29 adjournment.