Join us for a series of public meetings. The Nature Conservancy will be hosting meetings along the Wabash River to discuss findings from a recent biological assessment.
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Wabash River Partners and Resources
The Wabash River Heritage Corridor Commission, representing the Wabash River Heritage Corridor, shall protect and enhance the natural, cultural, historical, and recreational resources and encourage sustainable development of the corridor. This will be accomplished by stimulating public interest, encouraging the exchange of information, and supporting the establishment of common goals and cooperative actions of people and communities within the Wabash River Heritage Corridor.
The Wabash River Enhancement Corporation's purposes will be to create and implement a world-class plan to appropriately develop and assure the conservation of the corridor; oversee financial matters; improve public health and safety "through securing land and funds for additional trails, parks and appropriate development of the riverfront"; expand the river's recreational capacity; and enhance collaboration and "resource sharing" in the community.
Chech out the Pharos-Tribune article about the Conservancy's first Wabash River meeting in Logansport.
Lafayette's Journal & Courier also wrote about the Wabash public meeting that took place in Big Four Depot.
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Importance of the Wabash River. As humans we are always drawn to water. It is vital to our health, but also serves as an important resource for transportation, manufacturing, and recreation. All major cities in the United States are located on or very near a body of water, usually a navigable river, lake, or ocean.
The Nature Conservancy is particularly interested in the Wabash River because it is a treasure chest of rare and endangered species and a critical migratory path and stop over area for many bird species. Not only is the Wabash a critical biodiversity resource for Indiana, it is also globally significant, with over 400 occurrences of rare species and communities within the drainage. Directly and through its tributaries, the Wabash River drains about 75% of the State of Indiana, directly affecting 73 Indiana counties as well as many counties in southeastern Illinois. We estimate that over 700,000 people in Indiana alone live within 15 miles of the Wabash River.
The Nature Conservancy would like to help energize conservation and restoration efforts of the largest river in Indiana. Moreover, what we do in Indiana to affect the quality of water of the Wabash River ultimately affects the Ohio River, the Mississippi River, and the Gulf of Mexico. The “dead zone” plume in the Gulf of Mexico extending out from the mouth of the Mississippi River is attributable largely to farming and land use practices in the Midwest, including Indiana.
We have identified the Wabash River as a crucially important river system to protect freshwater biodiversity. We are now at the stage where we need to better understand the components of the system (just what animal and plant species depend on the River for habitat and sustenance and where they are found along the river), the stresses on the system, and the sources of those stresses.
The Nature Conservancy contracted with a proven partner, the Midwest Biodiversity Institute (MBI), to synthesize historical data collected from the Wabash River and its major tributaries and use this data to create a comprehensive biological assessment for the Wabash River and its major tributaries. This comprehensive analysis will identify in detail the location of the species we are trying to protect, the conditions under which they live such as the amount of sediment in the river and the amount of nonpoint source pollution (stresses), and the sources of those stresses. The Wabash River has been studied extensively in the past, and there is a wealth of information available from state, federal and private institutions. MBI's analysis is the first compilation of existing available information into a comprehensive aquatic assessment for the Wabash and its major tributaries. This larger view of the basin is critical to local, regional and state-wide conservation planning, including our own planning to identify and define the actions we will take to protect the river.
The Nature Conservancy anticipates working with a variety of partners along the winding path of the Wabash River from northeastern Indiana to its southwestern corner. Our work may range from helping implement federally funded conservation strategies to improving buffer zones and reforestation along river banks to working with farmers and government agencies to change agricultural tillage practices to reduce the amount of sediment going into the river.
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