Northwest Indiana Nature

The southern rim of Lake Michigan in northwest Indiana is a healthy, resilient and ecologically connected coastal site that provides critical habitat for plant and animal diversity with equitable benefits for humans and wildlife. 

The Nature Conservancy’s Southern Lake Michigan Rim project works with residents and partners to improve this biologically rich area and to enhance the connections between people and industry with nature. The Region (as it’s fondly called by many) has globally rare habitats such as dune and swale and the Indiana Dunes, all amazingly juxtapositioned against intense development intersected by railroads and roadways.

September 2026

Climate Change Is on the Minds of Indiana Voters

This article originally appeared in the Times of Northwest Indiana.

As I flew into Frankfort, Germany a few years ago, a distinctive, reflective glint on many of its suburban rooftops caught my attention. “Look at all the solar panels,” I remarked to my husband. “It’s really caught on around here.”

Further investigation indicates that 18-25% of single-family homeowners there have adopted solar as their main source of energy. Acceptance of it here in Indiana has been much slower, but it’s growing. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Indiana has almost 11,000 residential, commercial or utility-related installations, including a recent one at The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Indianapolis office. That’s a far cry from the number one state, California, which has about 1.7 million installations (and much more sunshine, of course). But if the Germans can effectively produce energy from sunlight, I’m sure it can be done in Indiana.

This is all on my mind because we need more energy independence so that we can reliably power through the aftermath of future storms, lower our costs and help the environment—while also reducing our carbon footprint. After the major storm events of this summer, I believe most Hoosiers would agree with me.

A recent statewide survey conducted by TNC—before the first massive storm in June that ravaged places like Merrillville—supports that conclusion, particularly when it comes to solar power. Sixty-seven percent of Hoosiers view solar favorably, and just 18% view it unfavorably.

Perhaps those who see it as unfavorable aren’t enamored with some of the large solar installations they’ve seen displacing agriculture or impacting nature in some areas. That’s why TNC recommends placing clean energy projects on degraded lands like old coal mines and landfills as well as former industrial sites, known as brownfields.

I’ve been gently reminded by a few colleagues that you simply can’t throw a solar array on a remediated or capped site. These systems usually use steel pilings that could penetrate caps or disturb contaminated soils. It’s best to design solar installations into the clean-up design or use special foundation systems that can anchor the panels.

Any proposed site also needs to have the ability to interconnect with a utility, according to a report “Mining the Sun: Transforming Mine Lands and Brownfields into Clean Energy Hubs,” produced by TNC in 2024. When projects like that are feasible, it’s a win-win solution for the climate, communities as well as conservation.

A Majority of Hoosiers Believe in Climate Change

I also believe renewables offer more solutions than ever before, and increased acceptance by Hoosiers reflects a growing response to a much larger challenge: climate change. Up until now, I’ve sort of avoided covering this issue in my writings. It’s a difficult one to tackle, and not always very inspiring. I also assumed falsely many Hoosiers didn’t care about or believe in it.

Fortunately, TNC research shows that voters agree and care about the issue of climate change more than ever before. According to this research, two-thirds of Indiana voters now say they personally care about this issue either a great deal or somewhat, while only 31% don’t care about it much or at all.

So, what should we do with the evidence that Hoosiers are increasingly supportive about renewable energy and are concerned about climate change? For an answer to that question, I got in touch with Sean Mobley, TNC Indiana’s director of climate strategy. Mobley explained that for the first time since conducting this research, the majority of Hoosiers now believe their electricity costs would decrease rather than increase if their utility adopted more renewable energy.

“In an age of increased focus on energy affordability, the levelized cost of energy—or the way to compare different energy generation sources by the cost per unit of electricity generated after ignoring any incentives—indicates wind, solar and battery storage as the best option for utility ratepayers,” he said.

Some would argue that dependability, when compared to coal-burning plants, is an issue not easily overcome. Mobley indicated that co-locating more renewable energy along with battery energy storage would improve overall dependability while also allowing energy to be more easily deployed where it is needed in times of extreme weather and power disruption. This concept is known as a “microgrid.”

Public opinions like these matter because energy policy should ultimately be shaped by the people we elect to represent us. It’s time we let them know that they should seek ways to continue diversifying our energy portfolio.

“We also need to let them know that 80% of us want clean energy developers to site renewable energy projects only after considering community input and conservation outcomes,” Mobley said.

Solar and wind are made in the good ol’ USA, and they reduce exposure to fossil fuel price volatility, especially when there is a mix of renewables and other forms of energy. Let’s make our voices heard. Hopefully, our politicians will listen thoughtfully!

August 2026

Tornado Tree Damage Offers New Lessons About Life

This article originally appeared in the Times of Northwest Indiana.

We were whirling in the basement, practicing a Viennese waltz for a ballroom dancing class, when the warning sirens went off in June. Little did we know, a tornado was about to change Northwest Indiana—and my backyard—forever. Once the sirens had finally quieted and the worst of the storm had passed, my husband and I cautiously went upstairs to find a fallen giant in our backyard—a cottonwood tree that had anchored our northwest property line for at least 75 years.

The massiveness of such a tree is never fully realized until it is lying on its side. It was a male cottonwood with four branching trunks coming out of the main trunk. Each trunk was at least 12 inches in diameter, and its mound of roots and soil tipped up was at least 8 feet wide. Thank goodness it did not hit the house, but at least six other trees were either compromised or crushed by it, including two six-foot-tall white pines I had planted from small sapling whips given to me at a Porter County Earth Day event about 13 years ago.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about that tree. Since it was a male, it never produced fluffy seed pods, but it was still a messy tree, constantly shedding branches and leaves. I also knew it could potentially endanger my house someday. On the other hand, I understood it had stored lots of carbon over the years, shaded my house and patio late in the day, housed multiple squirrel nests, and may have pumped more than 300 million gallons of water from the ground during its lifetime.

I also grieve the fact that it would no longer act as a host for the caterpillars of mourning cloak, red-spotted purple, viceroy, eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies, as well as several kinds of moths. I could see evidence of their existence in the obviously chewed leaves littering the ground. Let’s hope they had already metamorphosized before the disaster.

Wildlife Adapts to a New Reality

For me the death of such a tree is an sobering event, but for wildlife, the fallen tree presents a new opportunity, not a crisis. It has evolved into something new in my yard’s ecosystem, offering novel forms of habitat and hiding places in the way of snags and broken limbs.

The morning following the storm, a group of chickadees caught my attention first, most likely a family group of new fledglings, fluttering around and keeping each other in check using high-pitched “seet” calls as they explored their new playground.  Several robins also have loved the elevated perches for hunting and scanning their territory for danger.

The squirrels have been the most opportunistic of the bunch, treating the fallen trunks like an expressway to other trees. They have already built a new nest in one of the precarious snags. I hope it holds!

I was most surprised to see chipmunks exploring and using the new habitat, since I had mistakenly thought they were strictly ground oriented. Hopefully, the new territory and opportunities it provides for searching for seeds and nuts (perhaps stored by birds like nuthatches) will steer them away from digging up my vegetable garden nearby.

Decomposers Also Get to Work

One of the most fascinating aspects of this dead tree is the micro-ecosystem I mostly cannot see, consisting of bacteria that had already been present in the tree’s bark, sap and its internal tissues. Within hours of the downfall, fungal spores were already landing, and existing fungi were signaled to start digesting the cellulose. Within days or weeks, bark beetles arrived, laying their eggs under the bark and tunneling through the wood, spreading the fungi as they worked.

The tree's root mass will stay and is probably already creating instant burrows for chipmunks as it slumps and settles. If the stump remains tall enough, it will become a lasting perch for blue jays, woodpeckers and even a red-shouldered hawk that inhabits my neighborhood. Many downed, twisted logs and branches further away from my property line will remain, offering longer-term wildlife habitat. I’ll also honor the lost trees with some new native plantings suited for my location that it will be fun to choose.

What I’ve come to realize is that while we should take nothing for granted—a fallen tree is not the worst thing in the world. The landscape reshapes itself, adapts and finds new ways to thrive. The storm took so much from so many people. Life can bend. Life can break. But, if we let it, life will begin again.

May 2026

Invasive Plants: Misbehaving Far From Home

This article originally appeared in the Times of Northwest Indiana.

Apparently, it doesn’t take much to amuse me. When traveling in other countries, I like to see not only native plant species that live there, but, more particularly, species living in their own home range that are invasive here. Last month, my husband and I were privileged to travel to Japan, and this guilty pleasure was certainly fulfilled.

One species I noticed quickly was Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum), looking like tiny bamboo plants on the forest floor. Easily identified by small silvery threads running down the middle of its leaves, it is an annual scourge in places like the Hoosier National Forest and other managed natural areas in southern Indiana.

Mike Everidge, a conservation land manager for TNC in south central Indiana, believes this species is “the single worst invasive species” in that area. Fortunately, in northwest Indiana’s nature preserves it is still what is known as an “early detection species,” which means that it can still be controlled—IF caught soon enough.

It spreads quickly here, forming dense mats after it dies in the winter Everidge calls “death mats.” Those mats then smother native spring emergent species such as wild ginger and blood root. It flourishes under both full sun and deep shade and everything in between, and it’s not picky about soil wetness or dryness. Further, its late-season seeds are like tiny pieces of Velcro, hitchhiking on any number of mammals or sticking to your hiking or hunting boots (which should be cleaned then after use).

Meanwhile, in Japan it is said to not be aggressive—because the insects, pathogens and competing plants it evolved with keep it in check. It fills up available spaces, but is readily displaced by sedges, ferns and spring ephemerals. It was good to see it behaving in its own realm instead of the wall-to-wall invasions we see in our forests.

Phragmites australis Not Evil in Japan

Another distinctive species I had no trouble identifying in Japan was Phragmites australis, also known as common reed, an incredibly bad player in our area with no checks and balances, except maybe high-water levels. Our crews spend countless hours controlling it. Here it densely grows in wetlands, ditches, ponds and water detention areas, and is most recognizable in late summer with its purplish plumes, sometimes reaching higher than 13 feet tall.  

The real story, however, is in the muck below. It’s a master of subterranean expansion with dense underground stems searching up to more than 60 feet to create new invasions. It also secretes chemicals into the surrounding soil, curtailing native species, including a now rarely seen native Phragmites. The result is a wall of grass that hides open water and silences marsh bird and frog calls because there is no place left for them to live.

For me, all that Phragmites marred the view of Mt. Fuji from Oishi Park on Lake Kawaguchiko. While the patch seemed dense to me, apparently it does not expand aggressively there and lives well with neighboring native sedges and other aquatic plants. It’s also a host species there for stem-boring moths and flies, and mammals like deer and rodents graze on its shoots and rhizomes, stunting its spread.

It’s Not the Plant’s Fault

Understanding how these species have evolved and live in their native range is a good reminder that we should not outright believe a species is wholly bad when it’s invasive in one location but has natural checks and balances in another. It’s not the species’ fault, it’s our own. More than 90 percent of invasive plants in the U.S. are here because we planted them for enjoyment or as a means of preventing erosion (kudzu comes to mind). Further, our propensity to “disturb the land” through development or grazing leaves the land vulnerable to invasion.

Surprisingly, many species impact both countries. I saw star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) taking over several places in Japan, including an area of the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden where it thickly carpeted the floor of a beautiful bald cypress grove (not native to Japan either). In the ground, tiny, copious bulblets have formed dense underground mats that spread further each year. I chuckled to myself about it and tempered my opinion to avoid spoiling the scene for others with us that day.

While looking at plants and comparing their characteristics to invasive plants here did not occupy all my time in Japan, it was sort of satisfying to see self-regulating ecological processes at work with some of the species. It was also good for me to recognize that other countries are dealing with invasive species as well. As humans, we love to move things around a bit and then wonder why plants—and some insects and animals too—then misbehave out of their natural range.

Learn more about invasive species.

April 2026

Region Progress Is More Sustainable When Adding in Nature

This article originally appeared in the Times of Northwest Indiana.

I’ve been reading with interest and pride lately the NWI Times series “Identity at a Crossroads,” covering the great progress the Region is making toward improved economic growth, innovation and quality of life.

Having lived here for nearly my entire life, it’s great to see some of the latest developments realized, like the Monon Corridor opening for the South Shore commuter line. As Tom Schager, president of The Times Media Co., said so eloquently, now is a time “in which the Region must define its identity and embrace the opportunity to lead the Midwest in economic growth, innovation and quality of life.”

As I read the articles, it occurred to me that something was missing: how ongoing conservation, ecological restoration and nature-based benefits are also contributing to quality-of-life gains here while also improving the health of Lake Michigan—and the planet. It’s all intertwined with sustainability, sometimes described as a “three-legged stool.” For progress to be sustainable in the long run we need to make sure each leg of the stool is strong.

The Three-Legged Stool of Sustainability

The leg being covered most extensively in the NWI Times series is the one that represents economic sustainability, including development, profitability, tourism, infrastructure and employment. The next leg of the stool can be imagined as human well-being and community resilience centered on things like public safety, access to education, basic human rights and social justice. In our quest for those things, however, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the final crucial leg: the environment, resource management and ecological health.

You may be wondering how nature helps you, so let me explain. Our dependence on nature is not always obvious. Conservation and environmental stewardship protect biodiversity while also preserving food security and clean water and offsetting the impacts of climate change through practices that make communities more resilient to things like flooding. In short, people and nature are interconnected; therefore, the future of one depends on the other.

A perfect example of recent progress made in that area is the efforts of several entities and communities committed to reforestation. Organized and tracked by CommuniTree of Northwest Indiana, since 2017 more than 14,000 trees have been planted in the area. Each one of those trees has the capacity to pump and use as much as 11,000 gallons of water, reducing loads on stormwater systems while also lowering air temperatures and absorbing pollutants.

One might assume that with both legacy and current air, land and water pollution wreaking havoc on the environment here, protecting our natural resources is a lost cause. I’m here to tell you that is far from the truth. Although saving the dunes for future generations is 20^th-century history, and many nature preserves have been protected, safeguarding them means nothing if the resources aren’t managed.

I’m happy to report that a term coined way back in 2006 by the late Lee Botts, a staunch advocate for the environment and the Indiana Dunes, “Northwest Indiana’s restoration revolution,” is still underway. Through the efforts of many partners, including The Nature Conservancy, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Shirley Heinze Land Trust and Lake County Parks, more than 900 acres are reaching sustainable restoration levels in the Grand Calumet River’s adjacent dune and swale habitat. Some sites have attained an amazingly low invasive plant species cover goal of 5%.

Once known as one of the most polluted rivers in the U.S., today the Grand Calumet River is more than 60% remediated and restored, with more projects underway in the next year or so. This includes a crucial area of the river, known as the “Junction Reach,” and the Lake George Canal the East Chicago Waterway Management District has been planning for years. Getting the river cleaned and habitat restored is vital to economic development and well-being for both humans and wildlife like endangered Blandings turtles.

Of course, the National Park Service is also doing its part, working with partners like Save the Dunes to establish wildlife corridors for pollinators, sometimes using NIPSCO right-of-ways to connect and enhance habitat (especially along the Calumet Trail in Porter County).

Local Sustainability Commissions Lead the Way

What I am most encouraged about, though, is how many communities are now making sure that third leg of sustainability is addressed by enacting sustainability commissions that are actually getting work done. One of the first created was Michigan City’s Commission on Sustainability, which, among many other accomplishments to date, was recognized in 2024 by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) as a Community Wildlife Habitat™. As of March, 53 residents and entities have certified their habitat with NWF, earning the city points toward full certification.

Another group that has impressed me is the Greater Gary Environmental and Sustainability Advisory Council (GESAC). I attended one of their meetings last fall and was amazed at the level of energy and commitment of this citizen-led advisory group tasked with fostering sustainable development and enhancing environmental resilience in Gary.

These kinds of locally based measures help build closer relationships among neighbors and strengthen our capacity for self-reliance.

“There is a groundswell of things going on,” said Kathy Sipple, a catalyst for many important sustainability efforts in the Region, including working with the Indiana Wildlife Federation to get the entire state of Indiana recognized for having wildlife-friendly habitats driven by community-driven conservation efforts.

A Native American proverb says, “we don’t inherit our Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” There are many great initiatives underway to make the Region shine in the Midwest. Whether we are building gray infrastructure, bike trails, stadiums, convention centers or welcoming loads of tourists, let’s work together to make sure all three legs of sustainability are addressed not just for us but also for future generations of both humans as well as the nature here we all love.