1 week Ago By Caleb Amick The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON — As the Indiana General Assembly gears up for its 2025 session, advocates say there are a number of environmental issues on the table. Several groups will be following legislation to address land conservation funding, water availability and clean energy. Funding for land conservation reached record levels the past two years, according to David Van Guilder, senior policy and legal director for the Indiana Environmental Council.
It’s a trend he said needs to be sustained. “What we’re trying to do is embed a consistent and dependable source of money that can be used for conservation purposes,” he said. The environmental council has heard of a bill that will do just that.
Van Guilder and his colleagues will be closely following a bill likely to be modeled after legislation introduced in 2019 that would have tapped into state sales tax revenue from the sale of fishing equipment and sporting goods to generate funding for land conservation projects. Such funding could help replenish the President Benjamin Harrison Conservation Trust, which is used to purchase land for conservation purposes. That’s what the Red-tail Land Conservancy did in 2009 when it purchased Fall Creek Woods, which is used as a nature preserve, according to executive director Julie Borgmann.
She said nature preserves allow wildlife to flourish and mitigate the impact of climate change by drawing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, filtering rainwater as it passes through the soil and goes into aquifers. The Benjamin Harrison Trust is funded in part from the sale of environmental license plates. The trust has received about $10 million recently, which Van Guilder said is quickly being exhausted.
He said the funding bill, if passed, could generate about $62 million in revenue. Conserving land is especially important to both the Hoosier Environmental Council and Red-tail. Borgmann noted that the Legislature has recently rolled back crucial wetland protections.
The state protects wetlands by class. Class I has very few protections, while Class III offers the most protections. The Legislature recently reclassified some Class II wetlands to Class I, making them more readily available to developers.
“Once those land resources are gone, they’re gone,” Borgmann said. Water availability is another concern. Van Guilder and the Hoosier Environmental Council’s executive director, Sam Carpenter, hope lawmakers increase funding for the Indiana Finance Authority to conduct more regional water studies.
Those studies, advocates say, would provide information about water availability that could be factored into a statewide comprehensive water plan. The plan would provide officials with a bird’s-eye view of the state’s water resources. It would include long-range climate forecasts, projections for floods and drought, and other planning material.
Water availability has become a prominent topic in light of the proposed LEAP District, which would require water to be piped into Boone County from Tippecanoe County. “I’m hopeful we’ll see some legislation that would put a significant effort toward (water planning),” said Jill Hoffmann, executive director of the White River Alliance. “That would look like convening some sort of multi-stakeholder work group to spend more than just three or four meetings —not the usual task force effort — but spend some real time looking into it.
” Hoffman also hopes the Legislature will find a balance between economic development opportunities and the potential environmental impact of those projects. Electric companies statewide are starting to move away from coal-driven power, though there have been obstacles, Carpenter acknowledged. “We’re having trouble getting new, utility-scale products cited and approved,” Carpenter said.
“The regulation and ordinances around those vary widely,” he added. “It’s hard for planners to figure out the regulations they’re working under.” Wind and solar have experienced opposition, mainly by those who believe the infrastructure for those projects can pose more of an environmental threat than coal.
Carpenter said those worries are unfounded. “There’s a lot of misinformation about solar,” he said. “There’s a lot of concern about glare, leeching chemicals into the soil.
That’s not really proven or based on science. We try to base our decision making on science and what’s been studied.” Wind and solar, he said, are the most affordable means of providing reliability to meet growing demand.
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