If you look up at the right time of the year at Eagle Creek Park, there’s a good chance you’ll see a bald eagle, great blue heron or many other species of birds.
Those are only a few of the hundreds of species of animals and plants and an abundance of beautiful scenery. With those types of attractions, it’s no surprise Eagle Creek Park gets more than 1.3 million visitors every year.
“It reflects this universal love of nature that we all get to enjoy and appreciate, and we sometimes take that for granted. And maybe we shouldn’t,” said Lou Ann Baker, who lives near the park’s northern entrance on West 71st Street.
Baker, a retired public relations manager, is concerned about a water deal signed by Citizens Energy Group last October to provide up to 25 million gallons of water per day for use by Lebanon Utilities. That utility provides water for the 9,000-acre LEAP Research and Innovation District in Boone County northwest of Indianapolis.
Citizens plans to upgrade the T.W. Moses Water Treatment Plant within the next six years to draw additional water from the Eagle Creek Reservoir — between 1-3 million more gallons of water per day.
Martin Risch, a retired hydrologist, is concerned that if the company draws too much water from the reservoir, it could harm or kill the animals and plants that depend on it.
At the LEAP campus, Eli Lilly and Co. has broken ground on a $4.5 billion water-intensive medicine foundry, and the state is looking to attract more businesses, such as microchip manufacturers, that also use millions of gallons of water per day.
Baker and Risch serve as a member of the Eagle Creek Park Advisory Committee, a group created by Indianapolis in the 1970s to advocate on behalf of the park to the Indy Parks board.
They say they want to know more about the company’s plan for the reservoir in order to ensure it can handle what’s coming. They say the company hasn’t revealed much about how the reservoir might be affected.
Citizens Energy said general information about the project is already available online and its plan is to draw water from multiple sources.
“Water to service our Lebanon Utilities customer will not be exclusively drawn from any one source. Rather it will come via the totality of the Citizens water system,” said Ben Easley, Citizens Energy’s corporate and public affairs coordinator, “such that none of our water resources — including reservoirs — are deleteriously impacted.”
But Baker and Risch say those assurances are not enough. They want more specific information about water withdrawals from the reservoir.
“Our charge is not to judge whether the city of Indianapolis has enough water or whether the Citizens plan is adequate. It’s just, are you guys going to do something to Eagle Creek? And why aren’t you telling us,” Risch said.
The LEAP district water supply plan
Citizens Energy is seeking more than $500 million in funding from the Indiana Finance Authority to undertake more than a dozen projects that will increase the amount of Citizens’ water distribution capacity from 256 million to 300 million gallons per day.
To accomplish the expansion, Citizens Energy is attempting to purchase easements from approximately 400 homeowners in Marion, Hendricks, Boone and Hamilton counties for the construction of 52 miles of water pipelines for the project. If the owners don’t agree to sell permission to use their land, the company said it will file lawsuits to force its use through eminent domain.
The company says the cost of the infrastructure required for the project will not be passed on to customers.
Citizens will provide up to 2 million gallons of water per day during the first two years of construction. That will increase to 10 million gallons per day by the third year and up to 25 million gallons per day by the end of the sixth year of construction, in 2032.
That would be only a portion of the 100 million gallons that is expected to be required when the district is fully occupied.
How Eagle creek fits in to the plan
The Eagle Creek Reservoir is one of 10 surface water sources that will be used by Citizens energy to fulfill its water contract.
The company said the reservoir can hold about 8 billion gallons of water. Committee members, however, believe it can only hold about 5.5 billion.
That discrepancy worries Baker and Risch. Right now, the reservoir level is about 2 feet below normal.
Citizens Energy said it will not rely on a single surface source to provide water for the LEAP district, but would instead use its full system of water sources, including the four reservoirs with more than 25 billion gallons of water it can draw from.
“Our number one priority with Eagle Creek Reservoir is to ensure the health and integrity of the reservoir, including the downstream flows and optimal reservoir water levels,” Easley said.
The company believes the reservoir is capable of supporting the increased water withdrawal because the expansion will draw from increased surface water in the Eagle Creek watershed, which feeds the reservoir, that did not exist when the reservoir and the plant were first built.
How Eagle Creek Park could be affected
Eagle Creek Park, including its dam and reservoir, were created in the aftermath of fatal flooding in the Speedway area in 1957 that killed six people and damaged more than 1,300 homes and businesses.
Since it was completed in 1969, the reservoir has been a critical area for breeding, migrant and wintering bird populations in Central Indiana, such as mallards, cormorants, pelicans and gulls and state-endangered birds such as the cerulean warbler, Virginia rail and the northern harrier.
Climate change effects, such as year-round drought-like conditions, have contributed to a 3-billion bird decline in North America. Drastic changes to bird habitats within Eagle Creek Park, such as excessive water withdrawals, could affect how much food is available for birds there and affect their breeding.
“In nature, if you start pulling on one thing, you find it’s connected to everything else,” Risch said. “You start messing with that reservoir, the boating, the fishing, the swimming — the whole ecosystem — starts getting changed.”
Citizens Energy said its plan to supply water resources to Lebanon and its impact to local water supply sources has been thoroughly vetted within its annual strategic water resource planning process.
Despite that assurance, Baker would like to know more about the plan in order to prepare for its impacts at Eagle Creek Park, like the exact amount of water that will be withdrawn and what the company will do if water levels at the reservoir drop even more.
“I’m sure it has invested a lot of money in brilliant planning and engineers to come up with a great solution to this problem,” Baker said. “Please tell us so that we don’t lose sleep about what may happen to the ecosystem that’s sitting outside the window here.”
Citizens’ deal to provide water to Lebanon is part of an effort to replace a plan to take 100 million gallons a day from Wabash River aquifers and carry it 35 miles to the LEAP district.
Tippecanoe County commissioners threw a wrench in that plan when they passed a ban on high-volume exports of water from its aquifers that was extended to September 2026.
At the state level, lawmakers passed a bill last year, Senate Bill 4, that would prevent large-scale transfers of water above 30 million gallons per day between water basins beginning July 1. The law also requires a permit for water transfers between 100,000 and 30 million gallons of water per day.
But, because the Citizens-Lebanon deal happened before the law took effect, the law doesn’t apply to the deal.
The bill’s author, State Sen. Eric Koch, R- Bedford, told Indiana Capital Chronicle the exemption was to avoid impairing contracts signed for the deal.
State Sen. J.D. Ford, whose district includes Eagle Creek, voted in favor of the bill. In a press release, he said he shares concerns about the Citizens-Lebanon deal and that residents’ concerns need to be heard.
“I will be closely monitoring this project and its impact on the District 29 community,” Ford said in a press release. “I encourage impacted citizens to continue reaching out to their elected officials — we are here to serve you.”
Where to find more information
To learn more about the Eagle Creek Park Foundation or to become a member, head to its website.
For more information about Citizens Energy’s plan to supply water to Lebanon Utilities, visit the company’s dedicated site.
You can also ask the company questions about its construction projects related to the supply project at CLWSP@citizensenergygroup.com.
Citizens Energy and the Eagle Creek Park Advisory Committee are working to schedule a meeting in December to go over plans to supply water to Lebanon and how that might affect the Eagle Creek Reservoir.
A correction was made on Dec. 4, 2025: The headline was updated to accurately characterize the amount of water being sent from Eagle Creek and the current reservoir levels.
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Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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