A Win for Wetlands!

In 2020, Conservation Law Center partnered with Hoosier Environmental Council and the Indiana Audubon Society in a suit against Natural Prairie and the US Army Corps of Engineers. Contrary to its name, Natural Prairie is a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) with over 4300 cows in the bed of the former Beaver Lake, once the largest natural lake in Indiana. Beaver Lake was part of the Grand Kankakee Marsh, at one point the country’s largest inland wetland, and this property sits adjacent to the Kankakee Sands, owned and managed as tallgrass prairie by The Nature Conservancy. This procedural win in the US District Court for the Northern District of Indiana requires the US Army Corps of Engineers to go back and reassess its jurisdiction over these important wetlands. CLC is proud to partner with HEC and Indiana Audubon to protect this ecologically and historically important natural area.