Where are the rights of property owners?

Who owns the rights to YOUR property? Is it you, the county or your neighbor? That is the question that property owners in Huntington County Indiana are asking. And the answers from the county surveyor and the county Drainage Board only bring anger and dismay from property owners.

Property owners along Loon Creek Drainage Ditch are up in arms because of a decision to clear cut all the trees along the ditch. One property owner, Joe Grogg, had 500 trees clear cut in preparation for dredging of the ditch. Other property owners met with the drainage board in an attempt to assert their rights as the owners of the varying properties.

Sue Sunderman, a local realtor, has owned her property for 15 years. She was contacted in January of the decision to clear cut her trees along the ditch. Her response to the board came at last night's meeting.

"Our tree line poses no drainage issues, because we have maintained our property. We have continued to maintain our ditch as to prevent any type of drainage issues from fallen trees and debris. One of our concerns is what will happen to our driveway once the trees are removed and the erosion begins. The trees not only hold our bank in place but also provide shelter from the elements, home to many types of wildlife, filter chemicals from entering the water, and provide a beautiful landscape to our property, let alone the value that is being stripped away from our home."

The Sunderman's own approximately 2000 linear feet of property along the ditch that hold 208 trees. Their drive runs along the ditch with the trees providing stability. The Sunderman's researched and found that the ditch had been dredged almost 20 years earlier without removal of the trees. During that dredging, trees along the opposite side of the ditch had been removed allowing the erosion that now takes place on that side. They now face the prospect of losing 80% of their trees.  http://geology.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/3/7/393

Water quality and quantity effects from clearcutting
o Increased sedimentation, nutrient loading
o Increased stream temperature
o Injury to fish, amphibian and other wildlife population
o Water yield changes:
o Increased high flows from storms and spring run-off
o Decreased low flows in summer, negatively affecting riparian & aquatic habitat http://www.stopclearcuttingcalifornia.org/library/reports/waterquality.html

Tom Wall, a county commissioner, said that the concern about the trees owned by Sunderman and her neighbors doesn't belong to the property owners but to the farmers further down the drain line.  The board physically went to the Sunderman's property and x marked some of the trees and left others untouched. The marked trees were hardwood while the ones left were evergreen.

Indiana code allows for tree removal in an effort to save the ditches from overflow but does that give the county right to destroy privately owned property at will? Mr. Poe, the current county surveyor, says that there needs to be a middle ground in decisions like these. But if the trees present no problem and were left in a prior action, and the clear cutting will destroy the stability of the ditch walls, then is there any real sense to clear cut? 

Once again, Huntington County Indiana has become a battle ground between personal rights and dominion by local authorities.