For Eagles Watch neighborhood resident Tammy Dunn and Jessica Hart, a deal to send water to the LEAP Innovation District in Boone County is concerning.
But the prospect of that water coming back after being used at a major drug manufacturing facility and a hyperscale data center is frightening.
“We don’t know what chemicals may be coming in here, and it’s not been tested. Eagle Creek is a standing body of water. We should not be the test center. This is our drinking water,” Dunn said.
Citizens Energy Group plans to send up to 25 million gallons of water a day from Indianapolis water sources to local water supplier Lebanon Utilities by 2031.
The water will be used for the 1.2 million-square-foot Lilly Medicine Foundry, which is set to open next year, and Meta’s 1,500-acre, 13-building data center campus, which will open by 2031.
Once the water is used by those facilities, it will be treated by Lebanon Utilities and sent back to Eagle Creek.
The Lebanon Wastewater Treatment Plant will undergo a major upgrade beginning in 2028. Lebanon Utilities general manager Ed Basquill told Mirror Indy the water discharged from the plant into Eagle Creek will meet state standards and will be the same quality or better than the water that is already there.
But some residents aren’t convinced the small city’s plant will be able to clean the water properly.
“I have a 14-year-old daughter, and I don’t want her to be exposed to chemicals,” Hart said. “I bought a reverse osmosis (filter) because I have a well, and I don’t know if my water is going to be safe to drink in or bathe in.”
Dunn and Hart were part of the Walk for Water event March 14, where more than a hundred concerned residents and local officials walked across the Eagle Creek Bridge on West 56th Street on March 14 to draw attention to the water deal and convince state and city leaders to push to reduce its impact on Indianapolis residents and local wildlife.
City councilors get involved
Among the attendees were several Indianapolis city-county councilors, including City-County Council vice president John Barth, District 3 Councilor Dan Boots and District 13 Councilor Jesse Brown.
Council President Maggie Lewis, who represents Eagle Creek Park and surrounding areas, was unable to attend because she was caring for an ill family member, according to council spokesperson Sara Hindi.
Boots, who heads the council’s Parks and Recreation Committee that oversees Eagle Creek Park, said he’s pushing for the city and its residents to have a greater say in how its water resources are used.
“All aspects of the deal, from the very beginning, in my opinion, have been done kind of under the table. LEAP is here. We have to deal with it, but it, too, feels like it was done under the dark of night,” Boots said.
Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration will soon have a chance to negotiate with Citizens Energy directly when the it considers a renewal of a 50-year contract that allows the company to withdraw water from Eagle Creek Reservoir, which is owned by the city.
Because it is a contract, the city county-council will not have an opportunity to vote on the deal.
Boots said he and other councilors will communicate with the mayor’s office about what councilors and residents want to require from the company as they consider an agreement.
“We have a long, extensive, eight-page letter going to the mayor this week that spells out what we want done,” Boots said. “And in the end it says, if they don’t do that, our council will not support (a deal).”
Concerns about pollutants
One of the issues residents hope to change is the location where the water used in the LEAP district will be returned to Eagle Creek. Right now, Lebanon Utilities is planning to place the outfall at Eagle Creek Park, just west of Lafayette Road.
Residents such as Hart are concerned about what sorts of pollutants could be introduced into the Eagle Creek Reservoir.
“We’re all on a well in our neighborhood, and I’m literally going to be drinking this water,” Hart said. “There could be phosphorus and PFAS. This is a finite resource. They should not be getting these valuable resources.”
The Lebanon plant’s state discharge permit limits how much phosphorus the plant can allow to enter Eagle Creek.
Basquill said some PFAS chemicals are already present in Citizens Energy water. State testing in 2024 found evidence of the PFAS chemicals PFBS and PFHxA in Citizens surface water before treatment. Lebanon Utilities clients will be responsible for treating some emerging contaminants, like PFAS chemicals, even before its discharge water is released to the treatment plant.
“If (industrial clients) want to connect to our system, they have to be part of our pretreatment program,” Basquill said. “They have to take samples when they’re discharging, and even before they connect to us they have to tell us what their process might entail. And in many cases, they have to have their own onsite, pretreatment to remove anything that might be in the water that we wouldn’t treat for.”
But if anything goes wrong in the planned process for treating water, the outfall could negatively affect migratory birds and their habitats, like the Starling Nature Sanctuary and the Eagles Crest Nature Preserve by messing with the food chain.
“You change the water temperature when you put treated wastewater in the lake, especially in the wintertime, and you change the amount of nutrients in the water,” said retired hydrologist Martin Risch. “The lake starts getting more and more enriched, and the kind of things that depend on more nutrition, like blue green algae or some other aquatic plants, are going to alter the base of the food chain.”
That could result in the birds moving away or dying.
“We can’t survive without Eagle Creek, so why on earth would we allow it to be used in a way that’s detrimental to all of our health?” Barth said. “We’re going to fight this thing. We’re going to do it together.”
Boots told attendees they should continue their fight to protect their waterways.
“People are watching what you’re doing right here today. People in City Hall are watching as well. They may not give you your due respect, but you have to keep this up. People are paying attention,” Boots said.
Where to find more information
To learn more about the Citizens-Lebanon Water Supply Program, check out its dedicated website.
Citizens Energy will also hold an information session April 7 at the Indianapolis Public Library Pike Branch community room, 6525 Zionsville Road. It will be held from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m.
An update was made on March 18, 2026: This story has been updated to include information about why Lewis could not attend.
A correction was made on March 20, 2026: The article has been updated to reflect the city-county council’s role in LEAP district water negotiations.
Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations.
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.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
