The Indiana Economic Development Corporation has planned the LEAP (Limitless Exploration/Advanced Pace) Innovation District located on more than 9,000 acres in our neighboring Boone County without ensuring that there were sufficient water resources for the businesses and industries that the IDEC wished to recruit there.
The IDEC began activities with lack of transparency directed toward constructing a pipeline to transfer tens of millions of gallons of water per day from aquifers connected to the Wabash River in Tippecanoe County to the LEAP district. After much opposition to the “water steal,” Gov. Eric Holcomb directed the Indiana Finance Authority, on Nov. 13, 2023, to oversee the completion and validation of a North Central Indiana water study. This study was to be assigned to a consultant mid-February 2024 and completed by August 2024 for the LEAP project for constructing multiple pipelines to transfer tens of millions of gallons a day from Montgomery County’s aquifer, among a dozen other counties, to the LEAP Innovation District.
Due to the proposed diversion of such large amounts of water through the pipelines, there are negative consequences for residents depending upon these aquifers for their
primary source of water. There are both negative ecological and economic development consequences.
By spring of 2024, the LEAP district’s coveted semi-conductor plant is to make its selection between Indiana and Michigan, hence the state’s requested pause. It is therefore imperative that Montgomery County unite NOW with surrounding counties in denouncing the state’s water transmissions and aquifer plundering.
There are better options to compete economically as a state without paving over pervious farmland or depleting aquifers. Existing idle aging industrial zones sit throughout the state in all 92 counties, i.e., Newport Chemical Depot. Overseas competition can be met through reimagining and redeveloping these sites in areas that can naturally sustain them. Our tax dollars allocated for the pipelines would be better spent to install wetlands and forests within Indiana’s depleting watersheds, recharging them naturally, while providing Hoosiers with a place to visit and enjoy.
Where do we go from here? For more information visit the website: stopthewatersteal.org. A unified voice is necessary to convey a sense of urgency to our Legislators, specifically, the House Ways and Means committee members, to reject tax funded pipelines to LEAP project. You can find your legislator by visiting iga.in.gov/information/findlegislators. Now is the time to support our local Commissioners in protecting home rule rights (Indiana Code 36-1-C) in this and in all matters of Montgomery County.
In closing, please familiarize yourself with the Osage Indian prophecy: “Only after the last tree has been cut down, the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, only then will you learn that money cannot be eaten.”
Kenny Cain of Cain’s Homelike Farms, Darlington, contributed this guest column.
