U.S. Supreme Court removes more protections for Indiana wetlands

The U.S. Supreme Court removed protections from many wetlands that used to be under federal jurisdiction. Wetland advocates say that doesn’t bode well for Indiana — which removed state protections for most of its wetlands two years ago.

The court ruled in favor of the Sacketts — an Idaho couple that filled in land to build a home that was later deemed a wetland by the Environmental Protection Agency. Now the only federally protected wetlands will be those with a “continuous surface connection” — where you can clearly see where one flows into the other.

Todd Royer is a professor at Indiana University’s O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He said not very many wetlands have that continuous connection in the state and we can expect flooding will get worse as wetlands are filled in for development.

“It will be difficult to point back and say this was the day when that happened. But this is, you know, one more step in the continual loss of natural habitats and the ability of systems to moderate flood conditions. There'll be water quality impacts as well," Royer said.