The Silicon Prairie: Water Worries

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind.-- How much water is under our feet?

One study from Peerless Midwest, Inc. estimates the Kankakee Aquifer has a safe daily usage yield of 44 million gallons. But what is the aquifer's full capacity?

The point is, we don't really know, but development decisions that affect that supply are being made anyway. Experts say more data is needed.

In ABC57's Annie Kate's special report, The Silicon Prairie: Water Worries, she starts a conversation about water and the impacts of new development.

The Indiana Enterprise Center

New Carlisle resident Dan Caruso got involved in late 2018, paying attention to his local government during the formation of the Indiana Enterprise Center (IEC).

"There was going to be an industrial development, there was going to be farmland sold," he said.

Acres and acres of farmland were sold to the county then rezoned for industrialization.

"I have been for some development," Caruso said.

"But did you want this?" Annie Kate asked.

"I haven't been against development," he said. "I didn't envision it being this big. But it's here and we'll live with it. But I say, you got to live by the rules."

Fast forward to 2024, Caruso lives near the future site of an Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center, just one development on its way to the expanding IEC.

"That is my main focus, don't poison my water," Caruso said. "They are bringing so much stuff onto this land, that it could get down into our aquifer."

New Carlisle sits atop the Kankakee Aquifer, a thick layer of underground freshwater. It's a big draw for developers, primarily those building data centers, which currently demand massive amounts of water to cool the servers running constantly inside.

"I am concerned that the right thing isn't being done with our water," Caruso said.

The St. Joseph County Board of Commissioners set a cap on how much water facilities, farmers, and residents can pump from the aquifer in a single day. Right now, it's 24 million gallons.

"'If we exceed that, we'll sit down, everybody will sit down,'" Caruso said, speaking of the county's plan. "That's me, that's Amazon, that's the farmers, we'll sit down, and we'll come up with a plan. And I said, 'That sure sounds like rationing to me.'"

He fears households will be limited in their water usage at some point down the road and charged extra if one exceeds.

De-watering

"I just find it amazing, they're getting water from the aquifer out of the way so that they can put this tank in there to hold waste," Caruso said. "It doesn't make sense to me."

And yet, that's exactly what's happening near the AWS site, according to the St. Joseph County Drainage Board. A large pipe is pouring aerated groundwater into the Niespodziany Ditch.

It's a common practice called "de-watering," which involves purposely pumping and dumping water from the aquifer. This lowers the water table and will allow for the installation of a stormwater retention tank.

"I'm concerned that, yeah they got a job to do but, I don't know that the protection of our water is a priority to them," Caruso said.

Calls for a statewide water plan

"Indiana as a state has abundant water supply, which is a good thing and kind of a bad thing." said Jack Wittman, Ph.D., a vice president at INTERA. "The good part is there's a lot of water for all of our uses; the bad thing is we need to learn how to not keep acting like there's so much water we don't need to think about it."

Wittman created an updated water study this year for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce -- essentially recommending a statewide water plan to guide future use and development -- something other states have started to do.

"On the stormwater side, we kind of have that piece of the puzzle sorted out," Wittman said. "But the long-term water supply problems, we have not tackled that problem yet."

Phillips Ditch

"I just really appreciate that there's starting to be an awareness of the interconnectedness of all this," said Director of the St. Joseph River Basin Commission Matt Meersman.

"There's a lot of concern, especially right now, around water use of new development, and what the resulting impact on our groundwater levels are," he said.

Meersman showed Annie Kate a device installed at Phillips Ditch in South Bend, which is part of Bowman Creek, which flows into the St. Joseph River.

The device, he explained, measures the water levels in the ditch after rain events, helping the commission understand the downstream flooding that's continually getting worse.

"When we get all this new development, we're changing the way water is stored and the way water moves in the landscape," Meersman said. "So, we're not infiltrating as much water into that aquifer to resupply it, and instead, we're sending it to a ditch which makes its way to the river and out to Lake Michigan."

It's just one device on one ditch on one creek. This kind of data is needed all across the watershed. But, Meersman said, it's a step in the right direction.

"What we're trying to get is data to better support those decisions, so we know, if we allow new development to occur, what's its impact going to be on the streams, the river, the groundwater, all these things," Meersman said.

The Watersheds

Michiana sits on a continental divide. There are two watersheds impacted by local growth and development: the St. Joseph and Kankakee Watersheds.

When it precipitates, water will flow into the Great Lakes, south toward the Gulf of Mexico, or it will sink slowly back into the groundwater.

But when land is developed and ground is covered in impervious surfaces, water won't absorb back into the ground.

Instead, it will go into drains, ditches, and creeks, possibly flooding. It is not going back into the aquifer at the same volume.

What can be done?

Better farming for better soil

"So, this is our property, kind of Hess Family Farms," said Jim Hess. "I'm the seventh generation to be on this farm."

Besides farming, Hess is the district manager for the Elkhart County Soil and Water Conservation District.

"We are standing on a huge retention area," Hess said. "We've kind of created, through our practices, we call them best management practices, we create a sponge. It's not a wetland, it's not a floodplain area."

These practices, no tilling and utilizing cover crops, Hess explained, keep the soil where it is, letting it get healthier on its own.

"I do it as a farmer to secure my moisture, I don't have irrigation," he said. "Soil health is a huge component to helping our aquifer replenish itself."

This offers hope from the agricultural space, letting crop fields act like wetlands, absorbing more water. But even as this shows promise, actual wetlands, which are critical to the maintaining the health of aquifers, are under threat.

Stripped wetland protections

"Essentially, what they did was they allowed for the definition of what is a wetland to become more stringent," said Steve Sass, president of Indiana Nature, LLC. "And therefore, reducing the number of properties that would then qualify as being a protected wetland. So that opens them up for easier development and draining."

A new Indiana wetlands bill, passed this year, could mean more water channeled into rivers and streams, which is not going back into the ground.

"Not only are we channeling water away, we're also not replenishing our aquifers," Sass said, "And we're increasing our demand from these aquifers from these data centers, which use a tremendous amount of water."

Development means economic growth, so decisions that could have long-term downstream effects are getting the green light because of the need for revitalization.

For Sass, also an ecologist, some of these big environmental questions surrounding development can start to be addressed at the ballot box.

"As an environmentalist, I would hope that more environmentalists would take it upon ourselves to become more involved legislatively," he said. "Run for office."

Concerns for future generations

As the conversation around water gets flowing, development ramps up before some of these big concepts can be properly fleshed out.

"I know several postmasters who I worked with who will tell you I did love arguing," Dan Caruso said. "But this is not an argument, this is life. And that was somebody defending somebody's job, this is defending life itself. If we poison this water, if we ruin this water, what are we going to do?"

Caruso stays involved, loyal to his town, worried about the generations that will follow him.

"I'm not going to be here a whole lot longer," he said. "But the next generation, my grandkids, this is where they're going to live. Unless there's no water."