Now, there is a very different king of piracy afoot - a kind that may eventually be settled in the state legislature, its administrative agencies or in the courts if necessary. For many years, the DeKalb County Drainage Board has been angling to remanufacture the Cedar Creek. Giant bulldozers, backhoe machinery and other heavy-handed excavation gear are used on the upstream part of the creek. That's what the river mechanics now demand for even the protected part of the stream. And they gain power to carry it out by declaring the stream a regulated drain under the Indiana Drainage Code.
Drainage law gives drainage boards access seizure on private property.
Not only do they seize your property, but also make you pay for what they do to it. The drainage board and surveyor don't even have to prove the benefits exceed the costs of their project, even when the affected property owner asserts that the project is of no benefit whatever. They just state that the benefits exceed the costs and proceed with the bulldozers. In the Cedar Creek case, the reach north of the protected segment in DeKalb County is indeed a regulated drain, but the Drainage Board and the county surveyor don't want to stop there. They want to charge ahead into the preserved segment in DeKalb and even into northern Allen County, where they clearly have no jurisdiction.