INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Environmental groups alarmed by changes either in the works or recently implemented by Indiana's environmental agency are warning that the policy shifts could weaken protections for the state's air, land and water.

The change drawing the most concern will mean that before the state imposes penalties against polluters it would need evidence that a discharge, emission or spill had caused "actual" or "significant" threats to human health or safety or damage to the environment.

Environmental watchdogs have raised the possibility of suing over that change, which is at the heart of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management's recent move to redefine what constitutes serious environmental violations.

Kim Ferraro, a Valparaiso attorney for the Legal Environmental Aid Foundation, said the policy changes seem poised to undermine IDEM's efforts to regulate industries, businesses and municipalities and therefore weaken its mission of protecting the state's environment.

She said tying penalties to evidence of harm to humans or the environment is a flawed approach because years often pass before the impact of pollution becomes known.

"If you're completely gutting IDEM's ability to enforce the law and waiting until actual harm is done, then there's really kind of no point in having the agency," Ferraro said.

Word of the pending policy change came as environmental activists were absorbing the news that IDEM has dissolved its Office of Enforcement, which responds to environmental violations and ensures businesses with a history of polluting comply with their permits.

IDEM is moving its 35 former Office of Enforcement employees from office space they once shared to new, separate offices in its divisions of air, water and land quality, where they will handle enforcement issue specific to those programs.

The agency maintains that the staffing change will make its enforcement process more efficient as well as more "speedy and effective."

"We're not ending our enforcement programs — a lot of people seem to be under the impression that we're doing that," IDEM spokeswoman Amber Finkelstein said. "Our goal is to allow the inspectors and enforce staff to work more closely together in order to enhance IDEM's ability to respond to compliance issues."

Jesse Kharbanda, executive director of the Hoosier Environmental Council, said speed is important in many enforcement cases but quality and consistency in the oversight and enforcement process is what's truly needed to protect the environment.

Kharbanda said it's too soon to know what the changes in IDEM's enforcement efforts and the new definition for serious environmental violations will mean in a state that's plagued by "serious environmental quality challenges" — most notably its heavy reliance on coal-fired power plants that spew hundreds of tons of pollutants into the air each year.

"The critique one can make right now is principally focused on process, not outcome," he said. "We don't know what the net effect of the enforcement agency dissolution will be."

He said it's also not apparent what the impact will be of another of recent change at IDEM — the agency's decision to take over all air quality monitoring, compliance and permitting duties.

IDEM officials said the goal of their move to end contracts with local pollution control agencies in Indianapolis and five other parts of the state is to streamline permitting, monitoring and compliance functions statewide.

Janet McCabe, executive director of the health-advocacy group Improving Kids Environment, said IDEM has assured her and others that it will not be scaling back air monitoring functions.

But McCabe, a former commissioner of IDEM's Office of Air Quality, worries that the change will shift decisions on local air quality to agency managers in Indianapolis.

She said IDEM doesn't have enough staff members to keep up the level of work the local air monitoring contracts could accomplish.

"Just the amount of local legwork that's required to engage people is I think just realistically beyond the abilities of a state agency," she said.

State Sen. Beverly Gard, R-Greenfield, who is chairwoman of the Indiana Senate's environmental affairs committee, said she has discussed the changes in IDEM's enforcement program structure with agency officials but had not yet been briefed on the other changes.

She planned to find out in early January what the impact of that revised policy would be on how environmental violations will be handled. Gard said that environmental groups have expressed their concerns about the changes.

"As far as the enforcement program, I guess my personal opinion is to give this a chance to work," she said. "There have been changes in IDEM's administrative structure under every governor."

Gov. Mitch Daniels, who begins his second four-year term on Jan. 5, maintains that the changes will strengthen environmental protection in Indiana.

He noted that during the last four years IDEM has nearly eliminated the agency's long-running backlog of outdated permits and enforcement cases.

"Every one of those new permits was strengthened, that is it to say its lowered the permissible levels of emissions. It's been a great step forward for the environment through better management," Daniels said. "Air and water has never been cleaner in Indiana in modern times than it is now."