Water Wars

Indiana’s Citizens Action Coalition has written a paper explaining how the water “LEAP” project in Boone County, relying as it does on transferring massive amounts of water out of Tippecanoe County and shipping it down state, reveals “severe deficiencies in Indiana’s water and economic development policy.” A couple of the key points:

• The shell-game with water to enable the LEAP district is fomenting public dissent and a water war, contrary to sound water policy.
• From a policy perspective, the state views water strictly as a tool for near-term, opportunistic economic development, not as a resource that requires strategic and systematic consideration to secure water availability for communities into the future and to ensure water bill affordability for ratepayer

I plan on reading it in more detail when time allows, but I’m reminded of Indiana’s gas boom.

The people of that time were profligate with what seemed like an unlimited supply of gas. They were spectacularly wasteful. “It became fashionable to erect arches of perforated iron pipe and let them burn brightly day and night for month after month.” There were calls for conservation that were largely ignored. (“In 1893 the State Inspector of Natural Gas wrote, ‘The waste has been criminal and the day of repentance is fast approaching, and can only be delayed by practicing the most rigid economy and unrelaxed efforts in the husbandry of this valuable resource of our State.’”)

…

By 1902, however, the wells were starting to fail and the falling pressure was allowing salt water to creep in. Companies that had re-located to take advantage of the cheap, readily available gas were forced to close. The boom ended as quickly as it started.