Rep. Rokita Presses USFWS for More Lake Freeman Progress

Press Release

Rep. Todd Rokita wants the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) to provide more information to Hoosiers who live and work on Lake Freeman, after helping to secure the agency's agreement with local power company NIPSCO allowing the Tippecanoe River to run more naturally during times of "low flow."

"My office and I are working closely with USFWS in the aftermath of trouble at Lake Freeman, an important economic resource to Hoosiers, to make sure they're protected," said Rokita. " In addition to mussels, their homes and livelihoods are at stake. We need to extract lessons from this event."

In another letter last week to USFWS Field Supervisor Scott Pruitt in Bloomington, Rokita asked important questions: Is the agency positive its measurements of the Tippecanoe are now accurate? What was the exact process by which the agency decided to place these mussels on the Endangered Species List? Could we know more about their biology and also historical patterns of the Tippecanoe, which could influence decision-making? The agency has so far been prompt in replying to the Congressman.

Due to recent drought-like conditions in the area, USFWS had ordered NIPSCO to divert more water to endangered mussels downstream from Lake Freeman, which then rapidly drained to nearly two feet below its normal level. The USFWS was acting under the authority of the Endangered Species Act, which places some species above the economic and safety interest of human beings, when it gave the order.

On August 1, when local residents made Rep. Rokita aware of falling business and jobs at Lake Freeman, in addition to falling water, he and his staff in Indiana's 4th District and Washington, D.C., immediately wrote USFWS urging quick action, resulting just days later in a policy change.

Collaborating with the Congressman's office and NIPSCO, USFWS moved the critical Delphi Gauge nearer to Oakdale Dam to more accurately measure river flow and re-defined what natural flow should be in dry periods.

With such long-term solutions in place, the Congressman remains interested in whether the agency could further improve its measurements and also notification of his constituents, when it make decisions affecting their income and enjoyment, as happened at the height of summer's busy tourist season this year, a bad time for a shock.

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