Feud over 'Stop the Water Steal' leads to kickoff of rival effort

David Sanders, a WL City Council member booted from an anti-LEAP pipeline group he founded, returns with competing effort. Meanwhile, Stop the Water Steal leader: ‘We’re still working'

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FEUD OVER ‘STOP THE WATER STEAL’ LEADS TO RIVAL EFFORT

Less than a month after confiding on several social media platforms that he’d been booted from Stop the Water Steal, a group he founded in fall 2023 to fight the state’s LEAP pipeline concept, West Lafayette City Council member David Sanders was back in version 2.0 mode Thursday night.

Drawing a crowd of 25 – many of the same faces who came for the first group’s organization meeting last October – Sanders told people in a West Lafayette Public Library meeting room it was time to reconstitute the effort under a different name, a different slogan and different signs, all with a familiar theme.

Specifically, he said, that meant positioning a group for others to rally around, hammering home the need to protect aquifer in western Tippecanoe County that the Indiana Economic Development Corp. targeted as a source for tens of millions of gallons a day to feed massive, water-intensive developments dreamed of for the LEAP district two counties away.

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

“There are people who still don’t know,” Sanders said. “We’re going to change that.”

Not there Thursday night were leaders of Stop the Water Steal, a group created with a nearly identical mission but rolling, they say, minus Sanders after a split that played out in public and messy fashion a month ago.

“We’re still here,” Noemi Ybarra, secretary of Stop the Water Steal, said earlier in the day, as Sanders was prepping for his second attempt. “We’re still working on the mission to save our water.”

Sanders, more than hinting at the feud that got him booted, said he had his doubts about that.

“They’re not doing anything,” Sanders said. “We’re going to be the ones that get things done.”