Meadow, forest sites designated new Indiana nature preserves

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A meadow area in heavily industrialized northwestern Indiana and a forest tract in rural southern Indiana have been designated as the state's newest nature preserves.

The action by the state's Natural Resources Commission protects those areas from development to maintain them in their natural conditions.

The Department of Natural Resources says the 119-acre Calumet Prairie Nature Preserve in the Lake County city of Lake Station contains the state's largest sedge meadow and wet prairie environment.

The other new protected site is the nearly 520-acre Outbrook Ravine Nature Preserve in Clark and Scott counties of southern Indiana. That site covers a rugged forested area that includes the most northwestern extension of naturally occurring Virginia pine.

Indiana now has 284 nature preserves covering more than 50,000 acres across the state.