The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is in the public meeting business this week, one on the one-buck rule, and the other on the potential of Glendale State Fish and Wildlife Area as a coal producer. Both meetings are scheduled for Wednesday.

A public meeting of the newly formed Natural Resources Advisory Council that replaced two advisory councils (that had operated effectively for many years) will hear details of the DNR’s proposal on the one-buck rule (bow, gun or ball-peen hammer) at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at Fort Harrison State Park’s The Garrison. 

Then, at 6:30 p.m. in the city government building at the town of Montgomery (Davies County) the DNR will stage a  “sort-of” informational meeting aimed at the folks of the area concerning the mining of coal by the Black Beauty Boys (that’s not a string band of Southern Indiana good ol’ boys). 

By DNR admission, the Montgomery meeting is to be geared primarily as an informational affair aimed chiefly at folks who live in the area of Glendale, the town, environs, and the FWA. 

But it appears to me that the Black Beauty Boys will be on hand with gobs of information on their proposal to mine parts of Glendale (they may mine the town, too, and perhaps Daviess County, if they want it). 

What I am saying, here, at least in my mind, the whole scheme probably was cut-and-dried before anyone important (the people of the state) got the first whiff of the barrel of rotten tomatoes. You will note that the DNR maintains it is an innocent bystander; it just wants to do what is best for the people of the state, what is best for them and the resource. “The little dog laughed to see such sport . . . and the dish ran away with the spoon.”

On the other side of the coin, when the print is blown up to readable proportions, we see that coal mining, like other forms of business, has a niche in the infrastructure of the economy of several counties. Coal companies have done some good things for Indiana, especially the surface miners.

Maybe we can get the land back as crappie and bluegill lakes after the coal is removed.

Once, while yours truly served (in the 1950s) as a member of the Commission of Lands, Forests, and Wildlife Resources, one of our far-north neighbors (also a member) complained about the bodies of water surface miners created. “Ever fished Brushy Pond?” I asked.

But even at that, I do not understand how a 45-pound bird dog will damage Glendale F&WA more than a 20-ton coal-hauling dump truck.

The DNR, apparently caught with the proverbial “egg-on-the-face,” is hinting that the Black Beauty/Glendale deal proposal may be in a land-bartering mode. If we are to gain more than we lose, a little land trading may be worthwhile. It seems to depend on what we can get for the 1,000 acres Black Beauty wants to mine.

Thinking more of it, Black Beauty Boys could be a good name for a string band.

ONE-BUCK RULE

It appears that while the Division of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) biologists do not like it, the one-buck rule will stay with us. Nothing official, but the DFW Natural Resources Advisory Council will hear DNR plans on the rule at 10:30 Wednesday at Fort Harrison State Park’s The Garrison. There have been some studies that favor the rule instituted in 2,002.

It’s about 50-50 among hunters, but Hoosiers are spending a lot of deer-hunting money in other states because they can take only one buck here. That could be the death knell for the rule now in it’s grandfather (fifth) year.  

Whatever the DNR does, it will be effective next season. This is a one-buck season.