Charles Bookwalter: Stop the plan to pull water out of Tippecanoe aquifer and defund the IEDC!
***FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*** CONTACT: (765) 670-1221
THORNTOWN, Indiana | Friday, Oct. 20, 2023: Congressional candidate Charles Bookwalter called for Tippecanoe County to immediately stop the plan to pull up to 100 million gallons a day out of the Teays river aquifer to be used for a $50 billion semiconductor plant in Boone County, saying it’s a project the people didn’t ask for and don’t want.
“We want 10,000 one-acre plots for families, not a 10,000-acre industrial development,” Bookwalter said.
The microchip factory would be the most expensive one ever built worldwide and would be part of a large, advanced manufacturing area that would be spread over 11,000 acres in northwest Boone County.
Indiana’s state legislators voted to give $122 million to the Indiana Economic Development Commission to buy the land from farmers at a reported average cost of $73,000 an acre and Sen. Todd Young introduced the CHIPS Act to give $50 billion to U.S. companies to build semiconductor factories.
“Todd Young sponsored it. Baird voted for it,” says Bookwalter, referring to U.S. Rep. Jim Baird, who voted for the CHIPS Act and whose congressional district includes both Tippecanoe and Boone counties.
“These so-called Republicans are centrally planning everything,” Bookwalter said. “But they’re not going to get away with it.”
The semiconductor plant being planned for Boone County needs millions of gallons of water a day to operate. But this was not disclosed to the public before the LEAP project was approved in 2022.
“This massive 53-mile project affects everyone along the Wabash and on the Teays,” said Bookwalter. “Boone and Tippecanoe County need to work together to protect all the people in multiple counties and states that will be impacted by this central-planning scheme.”
“This is a government solution to a government-created problem,” he added. “People need to ask themselves why manufacturing, including semiconductor manufacturing, left America in the first place.”
CONTACT:
Bookwalter for Congress
PO Box 43
Thorntown, IN 46071
ph (765) 670-1221
Margaret Menge, campaign manager: ph (812) 369-4325
bookwalterforcongress.com