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For more than 130 years, Citizens Energy Group has been driven to enhance the well-being of the customers and communities we serve by delivering essential utility services with integrity, reliability and care.
Citizens has evolved over the years into a company that provides natural gas, water, wastewater and thermal energy services. As the largest water utility in Indiana, Citizens currently serves more than 355,000 retail water customers and eight wholesale customers in eight counties.
In late 2024, Citizens finalized an agreement to provide up to 25 million gallons of water per day to Lebanon Utilities as our ninth wholesale customer.
Before Citizens agreed to provide water to Lebanon through the Citizens Lebanon Water Supply Program, we first ensured that our current customers would not bear the cost and that the project would not adversely impact central Indiana’s water resources.
Since acquiring the water utility from the city of Indianapolis in 2011, Citizens has developed a 50-year water resource plan and added more than 50 million gallons of water per day of supply and more than 100 million gallons of water per day of water transfer capacity to our system. In 2021, we added more than 3 billion gallons of storage capacity with the development of Citizens Reservoir.
The result is a stronger, more resilient system that enables Citizens to meet central Indiana’s needs now and in the future, even in times of drought.
The water main extensions constructed as part of the Citizens Lebanon Water Supply Program will further reinforce our ability to move water more nimbly throughout the system, improve resiliency during times of drought or high demand, and support fire protection in our community by installing 450 fire hydrants along new mains.
The additional water to serve Lebanon Utilities will be treated through upgrades to two existing surface water treatment plants, including the T.W. Moses Water Treatment Plant on Eagle Creek Reservoir.
Eagle Creek Reservoir has been an important drinking water resource in central Indiana for more than 50 years. Water production from the reservoir is expected to increase by 1 million to 3 million gallons per day over the next five years. Our advanced hydrologic modeling, coupled with extensive publicly available U.S. Geological Survey data, shows that water volume is more than sufficient to support the additional supply.
We will also continue to steward the environment of Eagle Creek Reservoir, ensuring the mud flats are exposed for migratory birds each winter and operating the dam to accommodate target water surface levels year-round. Downstream minimum flows and historic draw-down levels within reservoirs and streams will be maintained, and the program will in no way change our compliance with all contractual and regulatory requirements.
A separate but related element of the program is Lebanon Utilities’ proposal to discharge treated water to the Eagle Creek watershed. This type of release is common throughout Indiana and has the added benefit of keeping the water in the watershed of origin.
Any utility discharging treated water into Indiana waterways must comply with a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit that is issued and strictly monitored and enforced by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
All source water is also treated again before it ever reaches customers as drinking water. As a water utility, Citizens must meet the strict requirements of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, which are also monitored and enforced by IDEM.
Citizens is confident that the Citizens Lebanon Water Supply Program will strengthen our ability to safely and reliably provide water for our customers now and in the future. I invite you to visit www.citizensenergygroup.com/clws to learn more.•
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Harrison is president & CEO of Citizens Energy Group.
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