Lebanon begins work on Citizens Energy Water Supply Program

LEBANON, Ind. — For more than 20 years, the City of Lebanon has had concerns over its water resources. Now, it’s partnering with Citizens Energy Group to keep the water running.

The construction is just getting started. Sitting on the northwest side of central Indiana, the City of Lebanon says groundwater is hard to come by.

“We kind of straddle the Wabash River and the White River watershed, so a lot of the water drains away from us, so there’s not a lot of deep water here,” said Mayor Matt Gentry.

Gentry said that, currently, the bulk of their water comes from Sugar Creek and only provides around 4.5 million gallons for the entire city.

“We had to kind of go out of town to even get water in the first place,”

The mayor said the goal is to make the city’s water secure for decades. Currently, they have a population of around 17,000 people with projections to grow by up to 25,000 within the next 5 years.

“Boone County has been growing for quite some time, Obviously you need water for growth,” said Gentry.

Due to concerns of the wells running dry, the mayor put a halt on development last year.

“The moratorium was about ensuring that no one was ever going to be at risk of turning the faucet on, and no water would come out,” said Gentry.

That’s until large corporations, like Eli Lilly and Co. and Meta, showed interest in moving in. Lebanon Utilities is partnering with Citizens Energy Group over the next 6 years to supply up to 25 million gallons a day to the city at no cost to the residents.

“Construction has now begun,” said Ben Easley with CEG. “It’s not quite visible yet to most folks, but it will be more visible in the coming months, particularly by this fall.”

As for Lebanon’s end of the deal, materials have been ordered to begin work on their end of the pipeline. Lebanon said its construction will begin in September.

“We’re not just relying on one site to get all of our water,” said Gentry. “We’ll have multiple supply areas and multiple redundancies built into the system that will give a more resilient, longer-term, secure system.”

CEG said the water will be sourced from the larger regional system. In just two years, 2 million gallons will be provided to the area by Citizens, and another 8 million gallons the following year.