Julie Borgmann, executive director of the Red-tail Land Conservancy, describes efforts to keep land along the White River near Yorktown suitable for wildlife. The Red-tail Nature Preserve is part of the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust Fund, which supporters are hoping will receive additional funding in the upcoming session of the Indiana General Assembly. Andy Knight | The Herald Bulletin
An osprey lands on a nesting platform at the Red-tail Nature Preserve near Muncie. Volunteers with the Red-tail Land Conservancy say the return of the osprey to the area is a success story for the restoration of the preserve. Submitted photo | Mike Mosier
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YORKTOWN — Wooded areas along the White River in Delaware County bustle with wildlife activity year-round, according to volunteers at the Red-tail Nature Preserve near Muncie.
“These are rare and special places,” said Julie Borgmann, executive director of the Red-tail Land Conservancy, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and restoring natural areas and farmland in east central Indiana.
“Protecting this natural heritage, these natural areas permanently not only protects our waterways and critical lands for wildlife, it also allows for public recreation.”
Borgmann spoke during an impromptu hike along the river, during which a buck leaped from behind a tree and bounded farther into the woods. Borgmann pointed out majestic sycamore trees whose limbs overhang the river, creating a natural canopy in warm weather that helps regulate soil and water temperatures.
The conservancy owns nearly 2,800 acres of forests, nature preserves and conservation easements in east central Indiana, including the 60-acre Valena Woods directly south of the river.
The conservancy’s efforts to care for its land holdings are funded largely by donations and proceeds from the sales of special environmental license plates. But with plates representing a greater variety of interest groups becoming available over the years, Borgmann said that source of revenue is becoming more diluted.
With the state holding a budget surplus of more than $6 billion, Red-tail and other environmental advocacy groups are hoping the upcoming legislative session of the General Assembly produces some meaningful funding measures to help them further their missions.
Members of the Indiana Conservation Alliance, for example, have been working on funding for trusts including the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust for more than a decade, Borgmann noted. The results have been mixed.
“(Lawmakers have) supported legislation in the past, and so definitely the organization is looking at hopefully requesting additional money” in 2023, Borgmann said.
With Republicans maintaining supermajorities in both houses of the Indiana Legislature, state lawmakers will likely be asked to consider several bills addressing water and wilderness protection, environmental health, green energy and other issues related to the environment.
Other groups will also aggressively press lawmakers for attention to their priorities, but they acknowledge that, even with a 61-day legislative session, there is only so much time — and money — to go around.
ENVIRONMENTAL PRIORITIES
Renewable energy, addressing climate change and beefing up efforts to protect water quality are among the front-burner topics officials with the Hoosier Environmental Council intend to discuss with lawmakers. Although no specific legislation had been filed as of mid-December, two bills that failed to emerge from committees in the House and Senate last year — both addressing coal ash disposal — seem certain to be reintroduced.
“Coal ash oversight and coal ash management is … moving in the right direction, but it would be very helpful to give the state of Indiana additional authority to help with that momentum towards a more responsible approach to coal ash,” said Tim Maloney, senior policy director for the Hoosier Environmental Council.
“Those bills are likely to be opposed by the electric utilities, but I will say, notwithstanding whatever the fate is of new state legislation ... that there are other factors, including federal regulation and the liability and legal risk concerns that the utilities have because they’re home to these leaking, polluting surface impoundments.”
Maloney noted that community solar farms that would distribute energy to nearby customers are gaining footholds across the country. But in Indiana, disagreements among third-party utilities, local government units and residents have hindered their development, especially in rural areas. The HEC hopes to see legislation in this session that would broker solutions across the state.
“We’d like to see legislation that enables third-party interests — either a local government unit or a business or a nonprofit — be able to build a community solar project and then have the local electric utility include that power in their system,” Maloney said. “Their customers could benefit from that.”
WASTEWATER ORDINANCES
Other agencies are emphasizing their desires to have the Legislature tackle regulatory issues that they say are needlessly hampering local health departments from customizing guidelines for their communities. Advocates say these issues are especially prevalent with laws governing onsite wastewater systems around Indiana.
“There are significant differences in groundwater hydrology, soil morphology and surface drainage and topography” at sites across the state, said Tami Barrett, board secretary with the Indiana Environmental Health Association.
“Stripping local health departments of the ability and authority to tailor local ordinances to the specific needs of their community makes addressing unique or sentinel issues more challenging for local environmental health practitioners.”
Barrett said the state also faces a glaring need for funding in its overall public health infrastructure. She noted that the state ranked 45th in the country in public health funding, according to America's Health Rankings, a 2021 report issued by the United Health Foundation.
“More support is needed to provide the types and depth of services at the local level that are necessary for true preventative public health initiatives,” Barrett said.
SPENDING PROSPECTS
Lawmakers shared mixed views of the prospects for meaningful progress on environmental issues in the upcoming session. They noted that, while an influx of federal money aimed at infrastructure could accelerate efforts in coal ash cleanup and wetlands protection, revenues from other sources have begun to decline.
“We have the means to tackle some of these issues,” said Rep. Maureen Bauer, D-South Bend, a minority member of the House Environmental Affairs Committee. “The industry has shown some leadership in beginning to clean some of these sites up.”
Other legislators indicated that several other topics, including stormwater regulation, guidelines for fossil fuel blends and inspections of underground storage tanks, would also demand their attention.
“We’ve got to be very careful with new spending,” said Sen. Mike Gaskill, R-Anderson, a ranking member of the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee.
“When we start to see revenue numbers declining, that means the surplus could disappear in a hurry. That’s a huge concern for me with any new spending, not just environmental.”
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