State's Healthy Rivers Program Buys More Than 650 Acres To Protect Waterways

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana's push to conserve land along some of the state's waterways has added more than 650 acres to a program that safeguards riverside lands from development.

The state Department of Natural Resources says the Healthy Rivers Initiative recently bought 380 acres in Vigo County's Wabash River Conservation Area and 287 acres along the Muscatatuck River in southern Indiana's Scott and Jackson counties.

Since Healthy Rivers was launched in 2010, that initiative has bought nearly 12,500 acres and permanently protected nearly 32,000 acres through newly acquired land, previous DNR ownership or federal Wetland Reserve conservation programs.

DNR Fish & Wildlife director Mark Reiter says the new acquisitions move the program closer to its goal of protecting 70,000 acres along the Wabash River, Sugar Creek and the Muscatatuck River.