PORTAGE, Ind. (AP) — The embattled executive director of the commission in charge of building levees along the Little Calumet River is defending its work in the wake of criticism that followed last week’s flooding in Munster.

Dan Gardner and the Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission have been accused of mismanaging and delaying the flood control project. Earlier this week, U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky called on the commission to fire Gardner, describing him as “obstinately ineffective.”

Gardner said Wednesday that the agency has, and will provide access to, records that prove it has been honest with its money and diligent with its time.

Every two years, the State Board of Accounts reviews the latest financial documents, looking for any irregularities. Every year since 1980, the records have come up clean, Gardner said.

Audits released Wednesday do not show any findings of misappropriation of funds.

“The call for an investigation into the commission’s finances is absolutely timely and appropriate, and we embrace it,” Gardner said, adding that the commission will initially release its audits for the past five or six years.

Gardner said the commission would cooperate with the second-level audit requested by nine state representatives and senators Wednesday, but he stressed that the board of accounts has yet to find the need for one itself.

Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday that he had spoken with Visclosky and shares his concerns about the pace of the commission’s work.

“I think that people have suffered up there because that commission hasn’t done its work. It’s had, what, more than two decades to do it?” Daniels said.

The commission was created two decades ago to build flood control levees along a 22-mile stretch of the river.

In 1990, Gardner said the project should take eight years to complete.

He said Wednesday that various obstacles have caused the delays and defended the group’s work on a levee on the south side of the river in Gary.

Gardner said the commission went beyond what the Army Corps or Engineers said was necessary to protect the area. He said the cost of that extra protection is not eligible for federal funding, but that Gary agreed to fund the $1.4 million the Army Corps would normally pay.

He also pointed to a state permit, approved in February 2004, that prevented the start of construction on levees in Hammond until contracts for the completion of another levee were awarded.

“The slowness has really not been on us not having a sense of urgency,” Gardner said.

Since the General Assembly began appropriating money for the flood control project in the 1985-86 budget, the commission has requested $72 million. Of that, however, only $29.5 million was appropriated, forcing a slower pace to the work so that the local share of the construction money never ran dry.

Recently, protracted negotiations with railroad, natural gas and other utility companies in Hammond stalled flood-control work on a narrow stretch of riverbank for about a year. Criticism has been particularly intense for that delay, where the recent flooding first reached Interstate 80/94, closing it for days.

Gardner said the commission went so far as to file condemnations against the railroad in federal court before the sides reached an agreement. He expects the Army Corps will be able to solicit bids for that contract as early as next week.

Posted 9/26/2008