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Water in a Great Lakes state doesn’t sound like a big issue. But water determines whether communities can grow or whether ambitious industrial districts might be just a pipe dream. In Indiana, our story of water law has two centuries of evolution, moving from simple riparian rights to a complex patchwork of statutes, interstate agreements and new permitting regimes. Along the way, communities like those in Boone County have found that “running out of water” is no longer just a metaphor.
Back in 1816, when Indiana was newly minted, most water issues were local and informal, since property owners who lived next to rivers and streams could draw water as needed without much fanfare. Fast-forward to today, and the idea of just taking water because you can mostly has disappeared into a tangle of laws.
For instance, the current Indiana Code still reflects the old principle that a landowner “may take water from a public watercourse … in the quantity necessary to satisfy the owner’s needs for domestic purposes” including “household purposes” and for “livestock, poultry, and domestic animals” and that this use “has priority and is superior to all other uses.” Ind. Code § 14-25-1-3. And under our case law, an upper riparian owner can’t use or divert water such that it is destroyed or unavailable for a lower riparian user. City of Elkhart v. Christiana Hydraulics, 223 Ind. 242, 256, 59 N.E.2d 353, 358 (Ind. 1945), see also Lowe v. Indiana Hydro-Electric Power Co., 197 Ind. 430, 436, 151 N.E. 220, 222 (Ind. 1926); City of Logansport v. Uhl, 99 Ind. 531, 539-544, 49 Am.Rep. 109 (Ind. 1884).
Along with those riparian remnants is a clear statement that “surface water is public water and subject to regulation is the accepted policy of the state.” That means the state reserves the right to govern how much water is used, not just who owns land next to it. Ind Code §14-25-1-10. And of course, there’s been a slew of litigation over who has rights to land next to certain bodies of water … but that’s a topic for another day.
As Indiana’s towns grew and more wells were drilled in the 20th century, our reliance on groundwater deepened. But groundwater isn’t infinite, and pumping too much in one place can leave your neighbor’s tap running dry. Many of our rural neighbors can point to high-sulfur water issues and having to re-drill wells after the influx of users in many areas of our state. Indiana’s answer was to enact a ground water rights statute that attempts to protect existing users when high-capacity pumps threaten domestic wells. Under Ind. Code § 14-25-4-1 et seq., within certain provisions, if a well is going dry because some big pump nearby is withdrawing too much, our Department of Natural Resources can investigate whether a groundwater emergency exists and potentially requires mitigation or compensation. Ind. Code § 14-25-4-1, et seq.
Then there’s the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact (the “Great Lakes Compact”), to which Indiana signed on with the other Great Lakes states and Congress in 2008 to protect those massive freshwater resources from excessive diversions and uncoordinated use. The Great Lakes Compact, which is now part of Indiana law, requires registration of withdrawals above certain thresholds and prohibits diversions outside the watershed basin except in tightly defined circumstances like straddling communities, with some teeth. Ind. Code § 14-25-15-1, et seq. Many are surprised that even for water-strapped areas of our state most of Indiana cannot access water from the bordering Lake Michigan under the terms of the Great Lakes Compact, because we aren’t in the watershed.
In the Great Lakes Basin, Indiana requires an individual permit for any new 90-day average withdrawal exceeding 5 million gallons per day from Lake Michigan, 100,000 gpd from a salmonid stream or 1 million gpd from other sources. 312 IAC 6.225. Within these regulatory guardrails, small private well users are fine, but once you start talking municipal or industrial volumes, you probably trigger state oversight.
The Great Lakes Compact framework was a big step forward. It acknowledged that water isn’t just a backyard supply — it’s a shared resource that crosses county lines and state (and international) borders, and it demands a broader perspective on sustainability.
Here’s where the plot gets more (?) interesting. Boone County, northwest of Indianapolis, recently found itself on the front lines of Indiana’s water challenges, not because of drought but because of growth. As the community attracted residential, commercial and industrial development, it hit the ceiling on available water supply. Many well users in Boone County have had growing problems with their wells, from changes in water quality to availability of water, in the last couple of decades.
Lebanon, the county seat, once capped its water allocation at about 4.6 million gallons per day to avoid starving its own residents and businesses. Projects that secured water before that cap continue forward, but others are effectively “on hold.” Local officials openly acknowledge that the county straddles watersheds that drain water away faster than the aquifers can replenish, and its natural underground supply is limited.
That’s a tricky situation: a community with plenty of land, ambition and potential for growth but not enough geological plumbing to support it. It’s the sort of planning problem that could keep municipal attorneys and engineers awake at night. So enter the ambitious LEAP (Limitless Exploration/Advanced Pace) Innovation District, the 9,000-acre megadevelopment that has sparked statewide water debates. Industry analysts and watchdog groups warn that the area simply doesn’t have enough water to support the projected demand … unless water is piped in from outside sources.
Not surprisingly, that has raised serious legal and policy questions about long-haul water transfers, who pays for the pipelines, who manages the supply and how to protect both source communities and those downstream. It was partly in response to this kind of pressure that Indiana passed SEA 4 (Pub. L. 99), effective July 1, 2025, which requires state regulatory approval for “long-haul water pipelines” and creates a permitting regime for large interbasin transfers under the DNR (e.g., Ind. Code §8130.9 for longhaul pipelines, Ind. Code §142517 for transfer permits).
So what does all this mean for Indiana? Well, water law has evolved from a simple right attached to your homestead to a nuanced regime that balances local needs, regional commitments and sustainability. So communities like Boone County face tough choices about growth unless they find external sources or enact robust conservation.
Practically, Indiana now needs legal frameworks that:
• Better integrate water use planning with land-use planning (so supply constraints aren’t an afterthought).
• Clarify long-distance transfer rules before crises arise.
• Strengthen conservation requirements even for smaller withdrawals.
• Improve data transparency so everyone from mayors to developers knows what’s available and what’s not.
In the end, getting water right isn’t just about laws and regulations. It’s about communities understanding their limits, recognizing shared obligations with our fellow Hoosiers and planning with eyes wide open. After all, you don’t want to be the lawyer explaining to your client that the law allowed the project, but there’s literally no water left to support it.•
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Hamer is a partner with Kroger Gardis & Regas LLP and a litigator in the firm’s Construction and Environmental Law practice groups.
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