Just as the Little Calumet River Basin Development Commission's work is winding up, Congress is thinking about changing the rules.

The levees along the Little Calumet River were built not just for flood control but with the promise that owners of property protected by the levees no longer would have to buy expensive flood insurance.

But now Congress is considering a bailout for the Federal Emergency Management Agency that would require flood insurance even for properties protected by levees.

In other words, all that money chipped in by the local and state governments would not have had the return on the investment that the public and their elected officials expected.

U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., has promised to "do everything I can to make sure that the final House-Senate compromise is in the best interest of our area." He needs to work quickly. The clock is ticking.

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed a member of the conference committee that will resolve differences between the two versions of House Resolution 3121.

The Little Calumet project has been dragging on for 20 years now. It needs to be finished, and the homeowners in Hammond and Munster need to work with the Little Calumet folks and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to work out a solution so the project can finally be completed before water contained by levees upstream of those homes wreaks havoc downstream during and after a major storm.

But Congress must keep its part of the bargain, too, by not forcing flood insurance premiums on people who no longer need it -- or, in the case of Hammond's Southmoor Road residents, people who already have been removed from the flood plain but might soon need flood insurance because of the levee's extra protection.

Fair is fair.