Stopthewatersteal.org

02/01/2025

In the middle of December, the Indiana Finance Authority gave a presentation on preliminary findings of its study of water supplies across the state. They gave this presentation to "stakeholders", which apparently did not include regular citizens.

As expected, they found that there is lots of water in Indiana, but it is not distributed evenly. Of interest are predictions that the population of the state will fall (leading to less water needed for people) while manufacturing will increase (leading to more water needed for factories).

Near the end of the presentation are recommendations. These include:
Enhance supply of surface and/or groundwater
Decrease demand for water
Better understand and manage water as a limited resource.

These look like reasonable recommendations, from the standpoint of protecting water. But we have not seen the Indiana statehouse take any reasonable actions yet - in fact, they usually do the opposite.
You can find the presentation here:

01/18/2025

New IN House Bill 1628 intends to take away the ability for cities and counties to regulate their own water, allowing the state to take what they want. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION! From the Tippecanoe Water Monitoring Group:

House Bill 1628 if passed will make it easier for the State to supersede the local authority over development of what they call "multi-jurisdictional infrastructure project".

From the Bill:
(2) "The siting, construction, and deployment of all facilities, equipment, and infrastructure used in the transmission, distribution, or storage of electricity, gases or fluids, or water. Provides for the preemption of all other regulation by a political subdivision or a local authority of the siting, construction, or deployment of any facilities, equipment, or infrastructure with respect to a multi-jurisdictional infrastructure project. Prohibits a political subdivision from taking specified actions concerning the siting, construction, or deployment of facilities, equipment, and infrastructure in connection with a multi-jurisdictional infrastructure project. Provides that a person that seeks to locate, construct, or deploy any facilities, equipment, or infrastructure in connection with a multi-jurisdictional infrastructure project is not required to obtain from a local authority a permit, or any other land use or zoning approval, with respect to the siting, construction, or deployment."

Please contact our State Representatives and tell them to vote NO!

the LEAP pipeline

11/01/2024

Here's a little radio report on how the kinds of water wars that have been plaguing the West could be (will be) coming to the Midwest.

But we knew that.

There have been big fights over water in the western U.S. Water scarcity and climate change may bring similar battles to the Midwest and Great Plains.

10/04/2024

Eli Lilly plans to build even more facilities on the LEAP land. How much more water will this need? Is it covered by the amount already reserved for Lilly? And will Lilly conserve water by treating and re-using it?

On Wednesday, Eli Lilly and Company announced a $4.5 billion investment into a new "first of its kind" facility in Lebanon's LEAP district.

10/04/2024

As long as Lebanon, the IEDC, and the state can play with hundreds of millions of (our tax) dollars to feed LEAP, they will continue to do it. Is this water really going to be used for drinking?

They plan to fund the water main extension with loans from a state drinking water fund fed by federal dollars.

09/16/2024

The policies at the statehouse do not support economic growth. Michael Hicks, professor at Ball State University, does not blame this on the IEDC, but on politicians and their lack of support for education.

Since 1980, most new jobs went to the 15% of U.S. counties with the highest educational attainment, only 6 in Indiana: 4 near Indy and the host counties of Purdue and IU.

09/15/2024

The Indiana Finance Authority has released the first part of their study of the water in the North Central area of the state. In it, they claim that water withdrawals have dropped over the last two decades, not increased. But that only tells part of the story. Jody Tishmack has written them a letter in response to that release. You can read that here:

Jody Tishmack, PhD, CEO/President of Soilmaker, has written a letter in response to the Indiana Finance Authority's (IFA) recent release of the first part of its study of water in the North Central area of Indiana. In that release, the IFA claimed that water withdrawals in the state's north-central