Is Tippecanoe County's aquifer Central Indiana's long-term plan for water needs?

LAFAYETTE — The concerns over Indiana’s Economic Development Corp.’s Lebanon LEAP project drew out hundreds of residents who filled up the hall of Church Alive to voice their concerns on Thursday night. 

The church had invited John Cochran, a representative from IEDC, and Jack Wittman, vice president of eastern water for INTERA — the company that recently conducted the field testing on the aquifer in Lafayette — to discuss INTERA’s findings and answer questions from locals.

Cochran addressed IEDC’s reasoning for examining the aquifer near the Granville Bridge in Lafayette and expressed the importance of this project for the State of Indiana.

In prior discussions about the LEAP district, the IEDC explained that the state had purchased land near the Wabash River aquifer with the hopes of extracting water and piping it to Lebanon to help support the development of an economic district in Boone County.

According to earlier reports, the project was expected to pipe millions of gallons of water a day to Lebanon, between 10 million and 100 million gallons.