Deregulating Indiana’s Wetlands
This story, by Ana Rakita, a Senior at West Lafayette Jr./Sr. High School, is a special assignment for Youth Environmental Press Team.
Prior to European settlement in what would become the state of Indiana, wetlands made up an estimated 24% of the area. Over the years, that has turned into about 3.5%. Yet 70% of Indiana residents depend on wetlands for their drinking water. The issue of whether wetlands should be more or less regulated by the government has been a pressing topic for several years. So what is the current state of affairs and why is it concerning for so many?
The timeline:
April 2021: Senate Enrolled Act 389 (SEA389) is passed into law by the Indiana General Assembly as part of the year’s legislative session. This act removed state government protection for Class I wetlands (hypothetically lower priority wetlands) and for most of Class II. As a concession for those opposing the act, it also created a Wetlands Task Force of representatives from professions that deal with this issue.
August 2022: President Joe Biden signs the federal Inflation Reduction Act into effect. The policy qualified Indiana for a grant from the EPA to create a statewide climate action plan, which started at $3 million and will potentially include more funding in the coming years.
October 2022: The Wetlands Task Force of SEA389 releases its final report following five meetings over the course of the year to evaluate the impacts of the policy and suggest next steps. The report concluded that there were noticeable negative impacts from ecological and economic standpoints, and that measures must be taken to incentivize wetland preservation.
March 2023: The tail end of the 2023 legislative session sees an attempt toward further deregulation of wetlands with a proposed amendment to a bill about septic tanks. The amendment died in the Senate but sets the stage for further erosion of the remaining protections.
May 2023: The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Sackett v. EPA takes away the vast majority of federal wetlands regulation previously in effect under the Clean Water Act. The fates of Indiana’s remaining wetlands now rest in the hands of state legislators. With this decision, the percentage of Indiana wetlands that qualify for federal protection dropped from 80% to just around 20%.
August 2023: Following the two-year anniversary of SEA389, over a dozen organizations and several climate experts author a press release outlining the effects of the law given data from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM). The data showed that under SEA389, only 25% of the wetlands that were destroyed were mitigated. [Disclosure: One of the organizations signing this press release was Earth Charter Indiana (ECI); YEPT is a program of ECI.]
Image courtesy of Hoosier Environmental Council
Protecting wetlands
Wetlands can be protected in two ways: preservation and mitigation. Preservation refers to making certain areas of land containing wetlands off limits to development; this can mean the land is listed as a state park or nature preserve, is privately owned through a land trust, or is the property of a farmer receiving financial incentives for it under the Farm Bill.
Mitigation refers to requiring those approved to build on a wetland (by way of obtaining a permit) to replace the wetland acres that are lost.
To assign these regulations, wetlands can be classified as Class I (not very biologically diverse), Class II (moderate habitat for endangered species) or Class III (the most unique and undisturbed wetlands).
This spells good news for some parties, like the Indiana Builder’s Association, a leading proponent of deregulation. Builders and developers argue for freedom of choice in how to treat an area of purchased land, and for prioritizing better construction. The pro-wetlands coalition, however, disagrees, including Indra Frank of the Hoosier Environmental Council (HEC). “The problem with that is that when you destroy a wetland, you aren’t just affecting yourself and whoever is on your property,” Frank said, “you’re affecting people around you, and the flood risk for people around you.”
Frank is the Director of Environmental Health and Water Policy at HEC, and having been on the environmental scene since 2004, has witnessed the developments in modern day policy. HEC was at the forefront of opposition to SEA389 since its inception, and is just one member in a pro-wetlands coalition of over one hundred organizations and politicians from both parties.
Among those authoring legislation to push back against the current tide is Representative Sue Errington, ranking minority member of the Environmental Affairs Committee. She asserts that doing away with wetlands actually causes Hoosier cities to lose money. “I’m really horrified. I think about how much benefit we get from wetlands…These are things that nature gives us for free,” Errington said.
A single acre of wetland can store up to 1.5 million gallons of water; without it, those gallons are forced to migrate somewhere else and become the burden of stormwater infrastructure managed by cities or flood a neighbor’s property. With the average annual rainfall in Indiana increasing, it is becoming harder and more expensive to keep up proper drainage, putting residents at risk and increasing potential flood damage repair costs.
There are a variety of wetland types found in Indiana, including bogs, marshes, swamps and more. Pictured here is a marsh in Dunes National Park. Photo courtesy of Hoosier Environmental Council.
And it’s not just professionals who have had a voice in the debate. “It is of the utmost importance that we have a state level law that protects Indiana’s wetlands, most of which are not protected at the federal government,” said Rahul Durai, a senior at West Lafayette Junior/Senior High School and co-executive director of Confront the Climate Crisis (CtCC). Since 2020, this organization of concerned high schoolers has been working with state legislators to draft climate policy; in the last legislative session, their Senate Bill 335 received a hearing in the Senate. That bill directly pointed to wetlands conservation practices, which Durai says has always been one of CtCC’s top priorities, in their proposed statewide climate action plan.
Wetlands are home to countless terrestrial and aquatic species; in fact, around half of Indiana’s species with declining populations rely on wetlands in some way. Photo courtesy of Hoosier Environmental Council.
Youth activism on the rise
The youth activism movement of recent years has found a legitimate place in discussions like wetlands treatment, and it’s not going anywhere. In addition to planning their next piece of legislation for the 2024 session, CtCC is working with IDEM on the climate action plan that materialized as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act, and is committed to standing up against wetlands deregulation as soon as it arises in the General Assembly. “I’m really happy to see [youth activists] because they’re the ones that are going to inherit what we leave behind,” Rep. Errington said. “So I really do encourage young people and other citizens to support protections of wetlands, and to support things that will mitigate climate change.”
For Hoosier activists, this is more urgent than ever given the Sackett v. EPA decision earlier this year. The portion of the Clean Water Act reduced in this ruling regarded isolated wetlands, or those that aren’t attached to larger bodies of water like a stream, river, or lake; isolated wetlands happen to be the dominating type in Indiana. And as Durai maintains, wetlands being isolated “doesn’t make them any less valuable.” Indra Frank agrees. “I’m hoping that the Sackett decision provides a sobering message that they can’t sit back and say ‘Well, enough wetlands are federally protected; it’s okay.’ That’s no longer true,” she said.
Graphic courtesy of Hoosier Environmental Council, illustrating the results of a statewide poll in May, 2022.
The next legislative session promises to be an intense one for both sides of the argument. Durai, Frank, Errington, and the entire pro-wetlands coalition promise their commitment. Durai said, “This past year, the Senate Environmental Affairs Committee got to hear the voices, the loud and passionate voices, of Indiana’s youth when the committee heard our climate action bill. And this coming legislative session, they will again hear our loud and passionate voice if and when they try to move forward legislation that further deregulates our wetlands.”
