For 200 miles, the Wabash River forms the border between Illinois and Indiana as it meanders south to the Ohio River.
On the Illinois side, lawmakers are scrambling to pass a bill that would protect wetlands from development and pollution, in order to safeguard water quality and limit flooding. But in Indiana, state policymakers hastily passed a law earlier this year to roll back wetlands regulations, at the urging of developers and farm groups who said such rules were overly burdensome.
That means the water that flows into the Wabash River from the west may soon be governed by very different standards than its watershed on the eastern side.
The divide is the result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that stripped federal protection from millions of acres of wetlands that had been covered under the Clean Water Act—leaving their fate up to the states.
"It creates a checkered landscape in terms of water quality," said Marla Stelk, executive director of the National Association of Wetland Managers, a nonprofit group that represents state and tribal regulators. "Even if your state is doing all the right things, you could be downstream of a state that doesn't have wetlands protections."
In the first full legislative sessions since the ruling came down, lawmakers in some blue states, including Illinois, Colorado, New Mexico and Washington, have been drafting state protections or have increased state funding to replace the loss of federal oversight. Some red states, including Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Tennessee, have passed or considered measures to roll back safeguards that are no longer mandated by the feds.
The lobbying from environmental groups on one side and developers and farm groups on the other has sent states moving in opposite directions during the 2024 legislative session.
A 'fallback plan'
The Supreme Court ruling in the Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency case last year stripped Clean Water Act protections from wetlands that do not share a surface connection with a larger body of water, leaving out many waters that connect through underground channels.
The decision leaves more than half of the nation's 118 million acres of wetlands without federal oversight. In 24 states, no state-level regulations cover those waters, according to the Environmental Law Institute, a nonprofit research group.
"Illinois did not have a fallback plan," said state Sen. Laura Ellman, a Democrat who is sponsoring the bill to protect wetlands under state law. "We're cobbling one together right now. The intent is to restore what we had in place before."
Democratic state Rep. Anna Moeller, the measure's House sponsor, noted that Illinois has lost 90% of its wetlands since the early 1800s.
"Wetlands are important in improving water quality for drinking water because they filter contaminants," she said. "They're good for preventing flooding because they act as a natural sponge. They're good for native species."
Ellman and Moeller said bill supporters are working with state regulators to make some minor technical changes before it advances. Paul Botts, executive director of the Wetlands Initiative, a Chicago-based nonprofit, said environmental advocates and regulatory officials have concerns about funding for the program, which lawmakers hope will be largely covered by fees on permit applicants.
Backers don't yet have a price tag for how much the permitting program would cost, and regulators in other states have found it difficult to cover their funding needs through fees alone.
But "the overall concept of Illinois stepping up where the feds have stepped back does seem to be resonating," Botts said. "There's plenty more sausage-making to come, because Illinois has not even had the bones of such a program. We're really starting from scratch here."
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Categories: Illinois, Government & Policy