Why one Indiana water bill advanced with a no vote from local senator

That, and several more notes for a Sunday.

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This and that/other reads for a Sunday …

WHY ONE WATER REGULATION BILL ADVANCED WITH A ‘NO’ VOTE FROM A LOCAL SENATOR

The statewide water regulation bill getting the best traction early in the Indiana General Assembly session – state Sen. Eric Koch’s Senate Bill 4 – cleared a Senate committee last week on its way to consideration by the full chamber.

The measure – coming in the wake of LEAP pipeline concerns always looming large for the aquifers in western Tippecanoe County – would require a utility or large private sector project to get a permit from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources for any development where large amounts of water are moved from one water basin in the state to another. The bill would require a second permit from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission for large, long-haul water pipelines. The bill also would pin regular recertifications to the permits.

(Photo Dave Bangert)

Earlier in the session, Koch, a Bedford Republican, said the bill didn’t necessarily stem the LEAP pipeline concept – one proposed to get as much as 100 million gallons a day from the aquifers along the Wabash River, seven miles downstream from Lafayette, to supply the 9,000-acre LEAP district in and around Lebanon – but to be proactive ahead of “the next LEAP” in the state.

Interesting, then, that the lone dissenting vote Thursday for SB4 in the Senate Utilities Committee came from state Sen. Spencer Deery, a West Lafayette Republican who also is carrying a bill looking to install statewide regulations on pipelines and large, LEAP-like water transfers. The committee voted 7-1 to move the bill to the full Senate.

“SB4 is well intended, and the mere fact that it is now a Senate priority shows how far we have come in making our case that a regulatory framework for large water transfers is needed,” Deery said this week.