Hoosiers often face barriers when maintaining, building on, or selling their own land.

Indiana residents and small business owners often face barriers when maintaining, building on, or selling their own land thanks to Indiana’s restrictive state drainage laws, eroding their property rights.

State Senator Jean Leising is leading the charge to reform Indiana’s drainage laws. Her goal is to see property rights legislation introduced during the 2024 legislative session.

Sen. Leising authored Senate Enrolled Act 85 during the 2022 legislative session to create a task force charged with reviewing state drainage laws. During the 2023 legislative session, Leising authored Senate Enrolled Act 242 to provide property owners some relief. SEA 242 repeals a provision that passed during the 2022 legislative session without proper vetting.

With this provision repealed, property owners now have the choice to ask a floodplain administrator to use state floodplain mapping or an engineering study when making permit determinations.

However, Sen. Leising heard feedback from many constituents urging her to do more on this matter. This is why the task force met again to hear many experts and stakeholders explain how improper floodplain management creates barriers for property owners beyond land development.

Despite task force members painstakingly debating and approving 20 of the 30 recommendations submitted to the interim committee on drainage along with three preliminary drafts of legislation, the committee defeated the final report.

Instead, the committee will only provide an informational document to fellow legislators rather than the three preliminary drafts of legislation which included:

• Creating a general license from the Department of Natural Resources for working in floodways without first obtaining an individual permit.
• Requiring the Department of Agriculture to oversee and prepare an updated version of the Indiana Drainage Handbook, which was published in 1996 with a revised 1999 edition.
• Removing logs from a river or stream won’t need to be cut if the individual doing so thinks it would create an unreasonable risk of bodily harm or if they are dried and burned so completely it eliminates the risk of reentry.

Sen. Leising says unfortunately, several members of the task force, which includes 12 legislators and seven governor-appointed individuals from organizations including the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and Indiana Department of Natural Resources, did not vote to formally recommend much-needed policy changes.

“I was extremely frustrated,” Sen. Leising told the Indiana Capital Chronicle. “I want to apologize to farmers and property owners—we tried, but we didn’t accomplish anything even though we had five meetings.”

Regardless, Sen. Leising is still committed to addressing these property rights issues and looks forward to seeing legislation on this matter introduced during the 2024 legislative session.

If you have faced barriers maintaining your property, building on it, or selling your land because of restrictive state drainage laws, we want to hear from you!

Please email your State Director Natalie Robinson at natalie.robinson@nfib.org or Grassroots Manager ML McGinty at ml.mcginty@nfib.org