Indiana
Implementing the Clean Water Act
INourwater.org – Stories of Indiana’s Polluted Lakes and Rivers
Promoting Alternatives to the I-69 Boondoggle
Implementing the Clean Water Act
ELPC’s Clean Water Act implementation work in Indiana, supported by the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, includes:
- Building citizen and local capacity to more effectively participate in the policy process
- Advancing the state’s under-developed “anti-degradation” rules
- Improving, upgrading and adding new use designations and water quality criteria, and
- Implementing and enforcing existing state clean water regulations.
ELPC attorneys are working with our partners at the Hoosier Environmental Council, Save the Dunes, the Sierra Club and other Indiana organizations to develop new “anti-degradation” rules that would correct future problems like the one involving the BP-Whiting refinery that generated so much controversy a few years ago. We also are following issues related to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Hoosier State.
INourwater.org – Stories of Indiana’s Polluted Lakes and Rivers
INourwater.org is an ELPC project designed to help people tell the stories of polluted rivers and lakes in Indiana. The website gives the public the tools to tell their own stories about water pollution and take action to clean up waterways across the state. One such story is from Indiana native Scott Rodgers, a homeowner on the Geist Reservoir who’s working to prevent the dangerous algae blooms that threaten the reservoir where he boats, and Marjorie Vance, who is trying to prevent a factory farm from being built near her home. These stories, photos and videos are all available on the website INourwater.org
ELPC is working to increase awareness of the pollution issues facing the state and engage the public in calling for solutions like statewide pollution limits for phosphorus and better water quality standards for factory farms. We worked with residents and water experts across the state to tell the changing story of rivers and lakes and their impact on people’s quality of life in Indiana.
Promoting Alternatives to the I-69 Boondoggle
ELPC is working with local environmental, farm, business and taxpayers’ organizations to prevent one of the nation’s great boondoggles: the controversial proposed “new terrain” Interstate 69 highway from Indianapolis to Evansville, in Southwestern Indiana. NBC Nightly News called this billion-dollar highway a “Fleecing of America.” We are fighting for a plan to upgrade existing highways that would create a travel time between Indianapolis and Evansville only ten minutes longer than the same trip made on the proposed new highway. This alternative, using Interstate 70 and an upgraded US 41, would save $600 million of taxpayers’ money. It would be far less damaging to farmland, to the environment, and to Indianapolis, Bloomington, and other communities.