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Groups
urge veto
of new wetlands bill
South Bend Tribune
- 5/8
Environmentalists
have launched a phone and letter campaign urging Gov. Frank O'Bannon
to veto new wetlands legislation that passed the Indiana General
Assembly late last month. Participating environmental groups include
the Hoosier Environmental Council, Save the Dunes Council, Sierra
Club and Izaak Walton League Indiana Division.
"There
is complete agreement that the bill should be vetoed," said
Tim Maloney, of the Hoosier Environmental Council, "so we're
notifying our members and others to communicate with the governor's
office to that end."
The
campaign follows a new analysis of the bill by the National Wildlife
Federation that predicts widespread wetlands destruction and the
degradation of other bodies of water if the bill becomes law.
According
to the analysis, the legislation provides only weak protections
for most wetlands and would virtually eliminate the state's authority
to regulate the discharge of pollutants into many other bodies
of water.
The
analysis was written by Jan Goldman-Carter, an NWF lawyer, and
forwarded to news organizations by various Indiana environmental
groups.
Goldman-Carter's
conclusions track similar analysis of the legislation offered
by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the
Indiana Environmental Institute, a nonprofit organization that
tries to mediate environmental disputes.
"All
of her points are well taken," said William Beranek Jr.,
president of the institute.
But
Beranek said O'Bannon now faces a "tremendous dilemma,"
as either his signature or veto would require prompt and decisive
action to remedy significant shortcomings from the law or lack
of one.
Without
new law, Indiana will lack any protection for so-called isolated
wetlands, which have no surface-water connection to navigable
rivers or lakes. Isolated wetlands are said to comprise about
a third of Indiana's 800,000 wetlands acres, and most are on private
property.
O'Bannon
has until Friday to sign or veto the bill, or he could let it
become law without his signature. O'Bannon spokesman Andrew Stoner
said the governor has received "some" phone calls and
letters on the topic, all urging a veto.
House
Enrolled Act 1798 combines three unrelated topics under one roof:
wetlands regulations, county storm-water management and vehicle
emissions tests in four counties.
Lawmakers
combined the measures in the waning hours of the legislative session,
complicating efforts to track last-minute changes to specific
components, especially the technically complex wetlands language.
"Clearly,
it could have benefited from more discussion," said Tim Method,
deputy commissioner of IDEM.
The
agency has not recommended specific action by O'Bannon, but has
sent him "a long list of concerns" about the wetlands
portion of the bill, Method said.
Like
the NWF analysis, IDEM believes the bill will remove IDEM's ability
to enforce the federal Clean Water Act in some bodies of water
and exempt many isolated wetlands from state protections.
Agency
officials also doubt there is scientific grounding to support
three classes of wetlands the bill recognizes, in descending order
of quality based on human impact, biodiversity, size and other
factors.
The
bill further complicates that issue, according to Beranek and
the NWF analysis, because it says the absence of any single factor
-- an endangered species, for example -- can demote an otherwise
pristine wetland into the least protected category.
"That's
ridiculous," Beranek said.
But
the bill's limitations have not convinced everyone that a veto
would be wise.
Will
Ditzler, president and chief executive officer of the environmental
engineering firm J.F. New and Associates, based in Walkerton,
said Indiana needs laws now to protect isolated wetlands, even
if better laws are needed later.
"Otherwise,"
he said, "we're back to rolling the (legislative) dice next
year."
Because
environmental groups believe the opposite -- no bill is better
than a bad bill, they say -- their hopes rest in a veto carried
by a wave of public protest. But even they acknowledge that might
be difficult, given scant media attention and even less public
engagement with the complicated topic.
"I
can only hope (the public gets involved)," said Sandra Wilmore,
director of the Michigan City-based Save the Dunes Conservation
Fund.
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