For the last 25 years, nature has put on a show for Robin Heldman.
“There’s a bald eagle that frequents the woods and wetlands right next to me,” said Heldman, 58. “We have red-tailed hawks that nest in the area and frequent the backyard. We have great horned owls, pileated woodpeckers, great egrets and great blue herons. A lot of waterfowl.”
The animals spend time in the more than 200 acres of agricultural land just west of Heldman’s home in Franklin Township. The area contains dozens of acres of wetlands, including some that are the rarest and highest quality in the state.
But they could begin disappearing as early as this year to make way for a large retail development, including the construction of several warehouses, along the Indianapolis border with Greenwood.
The concern isn’t just about the loss of beautiful birds and a picturesque view. Wetlands are nature’s water purification and management system. They soak up excess stormwater underground and slowly release it, helping to control how much water runs through local waterways.
Experts warn that losing them could lead to dirtier water and more flooding.
Until last year, developers were required to consider saving certain wetlands or replacing them somewhere in the same ecosystem. That changed under a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned that law — which is just the latest erosion of wetland protections in the state.
As for the Franklin Township development, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management accepted public comments through Wednesday, Jan. 3. The permit is required by state law to develop on high-quality wetlands, known as Class III wetlands.
More than 2,300 people have signed a letter submitted by the nonprofit Hoosier Environmental Council opposing the permit.
Recent changes to state law championed by the Indiana Builders Association, though, make it appear likely the permit will be approved.
Planting wetlands somewhere else could take years, though, and Franklin Township residents would lose their local wetlands and wildlife forever.
“This land has been undeveloped for at least two decades,” said Susie McGovern, senior water policy associate for the Hoosier Environmental Council. “Wildlife moves within and between the wetlands. We don’t really know what’s there. There hasn’t been a comprehensive habitat assessment of the area, so there could be endangered species that we don’t know about.”
The Gershman, Citimark development plan
Indianapolis-based Gershman Partners and Citimark Management Co. plan to build a $174 million retail area with five warehouses near the intersection of County Line Road and Arlington Avenue. The site would also have two areas to lease to retailers and a potential site for a hotel.
Gershman and Citimark could not be reached for this article. But during the city zoning process, attorney Brian Tuohy told the Metropolitan Development Committee in October 2022 that the development would not be out of place in the area because a gas station and a truck servicing center were planned just across the street in Johnson County. Tuohy told the committee the development would include a preservation area for trees and wetlands.
“On the corner, they’d expect maybe you’d see a grocery store or a drug store or a couple of restaurants. And then around it would be these industrial buildings,” Tuohy said. “But inside what we believe is a well-planned area, is a preservation area of trees and wetlands.”
Under their current plan, developers would install more than 300 trees and 1,300 shrubs around the site.
They also would destroy a quarter acre of Class III wetlands, which are classified by the state as the highest quality wetlands, and about 28 acres of other wetlands.
Less than 20,000 acres of Class III wetlands are left in the state, according to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
Gershman Partners and Citimark agreed to purchase about $49,000 in mitigation credits through a Department of Natural Resources program to help plant the Class III wetlands somewhere else in the Upper White Service Area, which stretches from the northernmost point of the White River in Randolph County to the southern tip of Morgan County.
The new wetlands would clean and retain water, just somewhere else along the waterways, and not necessarily to the same degree. Experts warn that preservation is always the best option, but replacement is better than losing wetlands altogether.
The state program also is imperfect. Due to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rules, the Department of Natural Resources must begin construction of a replacement wetland within three years of the sale of mitigation credits. But the department has sold so many mitigation credits in the Upper White Service Area, like those purchased by the developers, that they don’t have enough time to plant all the new wetlands.
Flooding and water treatment issues downstream
Besides the impact to wildlife, the loss of wetlands could cost downstream communities a lot of money in water treatment and flood mitigation.
Central Indiana is experiencing about 5.7 inches more rain per year on average compared to a century ago, and communities are asking the state for hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to improve their ability to handle the increased strain to their water systems due to increased rain and population growth.
An acre of wetlands can store up to 1.5 million gallons of water. Every lost acre means downstream communities will have to reckon with more water.
All of that water can lead to homeowners paying more money for damages in flooding. A 2022 American Economic Association study found that the loss of about two and a half acres of wetlands leads to a significant increase in flood insurance claims made under the National Flood Insurance Program. And the public ends up paying $8,000 in flood damages in developed areas for every two and a half acres of wetlands that are lost, according to the study.
Heldman, who lives near the proposed development, said she’s worried about potential flooding in nearby neighborhoods.
The development plan includes various detention ponds, which will store some water on-site, but the Hoosier Environmental Council believes that may not be enough to prevent flooding.
“We’ve experienced an influx of flooding in some areas, and I’m very concerned about them putting that amount of concrete and pavement down,” Heldman said. “Is that going to impact the residents in the area who have not experienced flooding before?”
Federal changes fuel local wetland losses
During the planning process for the development, federal rules could have changed the fate of the Franklin Township wetlands.
The developers filed for federal permits to build in wetlands, because, based on previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, developments there would affect Pleasant Run Creek, a U.S. federal waterway.
The permits would have required the developers to consider all practical alternatives to disturbing the wetland, including potentially avoiding destroying them altogether.
But soon after the U.S. Supreme Court drastically reduced which wetlands fall under federal jurisdiction in Sackett v. EPA in May 2023, the developers withdrew their applications and continued with their original plans for development.
That decision further eroded any buy-in for the development from many in the community. Cathy Burton, land use chair of the Franklin Township Civic League, said her organization initially supported the plan, believing the wetlands could be saved, but changed its position once the developers moved forward with their destruction.
“There was a lot of concern about the preservation of the wetlands and the wildlife that resides there and what it does to the overall ecosystem in that particular neighborhood,” Burton said. “But also the precedent that it sets to just kind of pave over what few wetlands we have.”
Eroding protections for wetlands
The Supreme Court’s decision is just the latest blow for people who value wetlands. Land developers across the U.S. and here in Indiana have successfully lobbied elected representatives to roll back or weaken laws that protected wetlands for years.
Backed by the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Builders Association, the Trump administration in 2020 reduced the number of waterways that fell under federal jurisdiction. The Navigable Waters Protection Rule omitted isolated wetlands and temporary waterways from federal protection.
The rule, while later overturned by a federal judge, gave elected officials backed by local developers the justification needed to roll back 20-year-old state wetland protections..
Sens. Chris Garten, R-Charleston; Mark Messmer, R-Jasper; and Linda Rogers, R-Granger — who are all members of the Indiana Builders Association, the trade organization that supports home builders in the state — drafted what would become Senate Enrolled Act 389. The 2021 law eliminated state protections for more than half of the state’s wetlands, leaving them vulnerable to destruction. They cited regulatory overreach as the reason during the legislative process.
When introducing the bill in 2021, Garten argued that the state’s wetland laws were driving up the cost of building, preventing Hoosiers from owning a home.
Builders Association CEO Rick Wajda told Senate Environmental Committee members at the time that, due to the Trump rule, Indiana’s wetland laws put it at an economic disadvantage compared to other states.
The law eliminated all permitting requirements to redevelop Class I wetlands, which make up about 425,000 of the state’s remaining 800,000 acres of total wetlands. The legislation also limited which of the 250,000 acres of Class II wetlands required permits for development.
A state task force, established alongside the law, later recommended preserving or replacing wetlands, noting the law was placing short-term business gains above the long-term health of the state.
Lawmakers, though, so far have declined to act.
Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @heyEnriqueSaenz.
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