Chamber: Indiana needs a statewide water plan to avoid conflicts over development

Headline: Chamber: Indiana needs a statewide water plan to avoid conflicts over development Img alt: A map highlights the state in swaths of pink, graphic, brown, yellow, green and blue. The pink areas highlight the areas where the flow of groundwater is less than 50 gallons per minute. The green parts highlight where the flow of groundwater is more than 400 gallons per minute. Photo caption: This map from the Chamber shows there's much more groundwater available in the northern parts of the state than in many areas in the south. (Courtesy of the Indiana Chamber of Commerce)

The LEAP pipeline project has created a tug-of-war over the water supply in Tippecanoe County — between residents there and those who want to create an industrial district in Lebanon. The Indiana Chamber of Commerce said conflicts like this show the state needs to start water planning now.

A new report by the Chamber said there’s plenty of water in Indiana right now, but with central Indiana growing and proposed development in other parts of the state — there may not be enough to meet demand in the future. It's an update to a report the Chamber put out a decade ago.

Since 2017, the state has been slowly working to complete regional water studies. Jack Wittman is a hydrologist with INTERA, which helped prepare the Chamber's report. He said the LEAP project has shown the state needs regional and state water plans.

“So it helps us see what other things can we do to make sure that we already anticipated these questions and were ready with information and data," Wittman said.
 

READ MORE: Growing central Indiana will need more water in the future
 

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Wittman said water plans can help identify what different regions need and where the state can accommodate economic growth — like near the Brookville Reservoir, about an hour northwest of Cincinnati.

“Brookville is not used very much, hardly at all — a couple million gallons a day and it has a huge capacity. So there’s an opportunity basically near Brookville," he said.

Among other things, the Chamber recommends putting one team in charge of statewide water planning, better monitoring Indiana’s water resources and funding water research.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story said the state started working on regional water studies in 2019. That was incorrect. It started working on them in 2017, as a result of Senate Enrolled Act 416.

Rebecca is our energy and environment reporter. Contact her at rthiele@iu.edu or follow her on Twitter at @beckythiele.

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