While Indianapolis recovers from historic flooding, water experts met on the west side to plan how to keep Indiana’s water clean.
Scientists, water managers, local and state officials gathered last week at the Biltwell Event Center for the annual White River Alliance’s Indiana Water Summit.
Top of mind was how to ensure that waterways are clean enough so that potential future natural disasters, like floods, aren’t made worse by toxic water.
Data centers and water use
One topic discussed was how to minimize the negative impacts of data centers on waterways.
In the past two years, several companies have proposed data centers in Indianapolis. Many residents living near the proposed sites, though, opposed the projects, in part citing concerns about potential pollution and excessive water use.
Indianapolis has so far approved the construction of three data centers before agreeing to a moratorium through 2027 to develop zoning standards. During that time, we may learn more about how much water data centers really use.
Companies like Los Angeles-based Metrobloks, which is building a data center in the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood, and Atlanta-based DC Blox, which is behind a far east side data center, say their water use will be minimal.
Indiana Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources Suzanne Jaworowski said the Indiana Finance Authority was performing a study of data center water usage, which varies depending on size.
“It’s a very important consideration to think about when there’s an industry that’s moving across the country and requires a lot of water,” she said. “Some use a closed loop system and don’t require very much water use. So we are monitoring that and being cautious about it.”
Jaworowski also said that the state plans to create energy industrial hubs throughout Indiana at existing utility locations or former coal plant sites.
“We don’t want to be like Virginia, where there’s data centers kind of littered all over the landscape,” she said.
Jaworowski said she is considering proposing legislation to establish energy sites away from communities. They would produce 3 to 5 gigawatts of energy, about enough to power between three million and five million homes, to supply data centers exclusively. That way, data centers would pay for their own electricity and wouldn’t affect water coming to communities, she said.
Another state effort involves potentially restricting water infrastructure funding. One example is the Indiana Finance Authority’s State Revolving Fund Loan Programs for communities that approve large developments if they would negatively impact current ratepayers.
“(A) concern that I hear that is becoming more and more at the center of my attention is the beneficiaries need to pay for the benefits they derive,” said Indiana Finance Authority environmental programs director Greg Swartz. “Existing ratepayers shouldn’t pay for extending and expanding service. Those new users should.”
Swartz said one of his priorities is to enhance the use of tax increment financing, which uses property tax revenue within a designated area to fund infrastructure.
Making sure we have enough water
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources is working on a statewide water inventory and management plan that would identify all the waterways in the state, their current usage, the availability of surface and groundwater and potential future demands.
According to Gov. Mike Braun’s 2025 executive order that launched the inventory, the department has until Oct. 31 to complete it and Dec. 31 to submit a full report on the findings to the governor.
DNR Deputy Director Ryan Mueller said the inventory will help find weak spots in the state’s monitoring and plan for extreme events, including both heavy rainfall and droughts.
He said once the flooding is over, the state would ask organizations like the National Weather Service and the U.S. Geological Survey to identify gaps in the network where more stream gauges would be useful for flood forecasts.
“It’s a relatively modest investment that has such a significant payoff, and if we don’t invest in it it’s going to be like driving a car without a gas gauge,” Mueller said.
‘Forever chemicals’ in our water
Speakers at the summit addressed emerging contaminants, like microplastics and the manmade chemicals known as PFAS. They don’t break down easily so they’re called “forever chemicals.”
They are resistant to heat, water, grease and stains, such as nonstick pans and clothing, for example older clothing made with Gore-Tex and some school uniforms.
Community water sampling by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in 2025 found several PFAS chemicals in Marion County water systems, including Speedway and Citizens Energy Group in Indianapolis, although the chemicals are largely unregulated in Indiana.
Some of the chemicals have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, pregnancy-induced hypertension and preeclampsia and high cholesterol.
During the Biden Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set limits on five PFAS chemicals and a mixture of three of them and set a 2029 deadline for public water systems to meet the chemical limits.
Last year, the Trump Administration rescinded the limits on all but two, PFOA and PFOS, and gave water systems an extra two years to come into compliance.
Indiana state Reps. Becky Cash, a Republican from Zionsville, and Maureen Bauer, a Democrat from South Bend, co-authored a bill this year that would have forced IDEM to set state limits on six PFAS chemicals by 2027 and would give water systems two years to come into compliance.
The bill was not heard by the House Environmental Committee in 2026, but Cash and Bauer said they would reintroduce the bill in 2027.
“Somebody’s going to have to clean this up, and we don’t want our municipalities and we don’t want our farmers to be liable for the cleanup,” Cash said. “We want to make sure that it’s the people that are putting it out there.”
No rules for microplastics yet
Microplastics have been found in every ecosystem in the planet, including in Indianapolis, and in every organ in the human body.
Last year, scientists in New Mexico found microplastics in the human brain at much higher concentrations than other organs and that patients with dementia had 10 times more microplastics in the brain than anyone else.
“Is that from microplastics? Or is it just because the people who had Alzheimer’s do something else in their life where they’re exposed?” wondered University of Notre Dame professor Kyle Doudrick.
Microplastics are unregulated in water systems, but in April the EPA began the long process of changing that by adding them to the draft list that identifies priority contaminants for potential regulations.
But Dan Moran, director of water quality system control and planning for Citizens Energy Group, said if microplastics make the final list, scientists would still need to perform more studies on toxicology and risk assessments. Then they’d have to decide whether to regulate microplastics and how that would work.
“Practical reality is that there have been hundreds of contaminants added to the (list) over the years since it was first started in 1996, and, to date, very few made it through that process for a positive regulatory determination,” he said.
This article was written by Enrique Seanz for Mirror Indy.
