Progressive Indiana Network: https://progressiveindiana.net
HoosLeft: https://hoosleft.us
Sanders Campaign Site: https://davidsandersindiana.com/
SUMMARY:
In this return visit to the HoosLeft Podcast, Scott welcomes Dr. David Sanders — Purdue University biology professor, 10-year West Lafayette City Councilor, and Democratic candidate for Indiana State Senate District 23 -- to cover two interconnected crises: the ongoing retreat from global public health infrastructure under an anti-science federal administration, and the accelerating threat to Indiana’s water supply posed by the IEDC’s water-hungry economic development agenda. Sanders draws on his decades of Ebola research and bioweapons nonproliferation work to argue for scientific literacy in government, then walks through the successful Stop the Water Steal campaign that beat back the IEDC’s plan to drain Wabash River aquifers for the LEAP Innovation District — and explains why that fight is far from over, with Eagle Creek Reservoir now in the crosshairs, SK Hynix eyeing those same aquifers for its new West Lafayette packaging plant, and the IEDC’s corruption — documented in the IndyStar’s “Three Kings” reporting — making the case for abolishing the agency outright.
WHAT’S INSIDE:
00:00:00 Introduction and Support the Show
- Scott introduces tonight’s episode as a return visit from one of his earliest guests, framing the conversation around a problem that has only grown since they last spoke.
- HoosLeft and Progressive Indiana Network don’t paywall content or charge candidates — listener support at progressiveindiana.net is what keeps the project going.
- Social handles: @hoosleft.us on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads; @HoosLeft on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; PIN is @PINIndiana on Bluesky and TikTok, @progressiveindiananetwork everywhere else.
00:03:33 Guest Introduction: Dr. David Sanders
- Scott welcomes Sanders back as a long-time ally and early guest, flagging that a full candidate policy interview with Derrick Holder is coming later in the campaign season.
00:04:10 Sanders Bio Part 1: Purdue, Ebola Research, and Bioweapons Nonproliferation
- Sanders has taught in Purdue’s Department of Biological Sciences for 30 years, specializing in how viruses enter cells; he holds patents on gene therapy vectors and has done significant Ebola research.
- He worked with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Biological Weapons Proliferation Prevention Program, including a visit to the formerly secret Soviet bioweapons lab Vector in Siberia — one of only two places on earth that still holds live smallpox virus.
- The program’s goal was to keep former Soviet scientists gainfully employed so they wouldn’t sell their expertise to what the State Department called “Third Nations” (Iraq, Iran, North Korea) or terrorist organizations — a Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction outgrowth that Putin eventually killed as he consolidated power.
00:06:09 Sanders Bio Part 2: City Council and Community Work
- Sanders has served on West Lafayette City Council for 10 years, working on issues including government surveillance, environmental protection, and making the city welcoming to its large international community.
- He’s also worked on quality-of-life issues like trails and bike infrastructure — trying to make West Lafayette a well-rounded community that serves all of its people.
00:08:19 Should We Be Worried About Ebola? Individual Risk and Hospital Preparedness
- Sanders’ direct answer: the individual risk of acquiring Ebola in the U.S. is extremely low; the real danger is to hospital workers treating an exposed patient, as seen in Dallas in 2014.
- Sanders was researching Ebola before 9/11, when almost no one else in the country was; that expertise led to a 6 a.m. CNN call after the Dallas nurses’ infection.
- His position, which differed from the CDC’s at the time: every hospital should be able to recognize an Ebola case, but treatment should happen at specialized regional centers — because proper use of personal protective equipment requires intensive, specialized training.
00:10:43 The CNN Story: How Sanders Pushed the Regional Treatment Center Model
- Sanders recounts being put on CNN opposite a physician who initially took the opposite position — every hospital should be able to treat Ebola — only to reverse course on the 7 a.m. segment.
- The regional treatment center model was subsequently adopted as U.S. policy, and Sanders credits the willingness of officials to listen to a well-reasoned argument as the reason it worked.
- He uses the story as an illustration of what scientific knowledge in a legislator can actually accomplish: not just commentary, but durable policy change.
00:12:48 RFK, Anti-Science Governance, and the Case for Global Public Health Engagement
- With RFK Jr. leading HHS, Sanders argues the U.S. has become an anti-science administration at exactly the wrong moment — and that pulling back from international Ebola engagement leaves us less prepared for the next outbreak.
- After the 2014 outbreak, Sanders called for building healthcare infrastructure in affected African countries so hospital workers wouldn’t be endangered; that investment never happened at the scale needed.
- The larger lesson: public health is a societal, not individual, issue — and with global travel and rising population density, every outbreak should be treated as a training exercise for the next pandemic.
00:15:58 Transition: From Global Health Crisis to Indiana’s Water Crisis
- Scott bridges from infectious disease to water: both are public health issues, both are being mismanaged, and both are being made worse by the current political environment.
00:16:43 The LEAP Pipeline Plan: How It Started and Why It Was Wrong
- The LEAP Innovation District was sited in Boone County near Lebanon with essentially no local water supply -- IEDC either didn’t know or didn’t care, planning to solve the water problem later.
- The proposed solution: a multi-billion dollar pipeline to pump water from Wabash River aquifers in Tippecanoe County, roughly 25 miles, to supply the development’s water-intensive manufacturers including Lilly’s pharmaceutical plant.
- Sanders’ scientific objection: those aquifers are near a toxic waste dump; pumping water out would draw toxins into the aquifer system and potentially into the Wabash River itself.
00:18:30 The IEDC’s Mission Creep and the Secrecy Behind the Pipeline
- The IEDC was created by Mitch Daniels to replace the Department of Commerce and recruit businesses to Indiana — a reasonable starting point that metastasized into a real estate corporation, tax abatement authority, and tax-collecting entity by 2022.
- All of the LEAP planning — land acquisition, pipeline routing, annexation to Lebanon -- was done in complete secrecy, with no public transparency or community notice.
- The state legislature enabled all of it; when Sanders first raised the alarm, every advisor told him it was a done deal and a city councilor couldn’t do anything about it.
00:20:01 Stop the Water Steal: How Sanders Organized the Community Response
- Sanders rejected the “done deal” framing, spoke out publicly at a meeting, and was immediately flooded with calls and texts from concerned residents — confirming this was not just his concern.
- He drafted a resolution opposing the pipeline, found a co-sponsor, passed it unanimously, and it became the template for roughly 18 similar resolutions across Indiana — mostly from Wabash River communities.
- The effort was bipartisan from the start, even in counties with all-Republican commissioners: the water issue united people across the political spectrum in a way nothing had in Tippecanoe County for decades.
00:22:25 What Stopped the Pipeline — and What It Proved About Grassroots Power
- It wasn’t the legislature that stopped the pipeline — legislation didn’t do it. It was the political pressure and media attention generated by Stop the Water Steal and allied organizations.
- The scale of the threatened draw was enormous: semiconductor manufacturing plants can use up to 100 million gallons per day — dwarfing even the water demands of data centers or Lilly.
- After Tippecanoe County organized effectively, IEDC pivoted to Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indianapolis — and Sanders has been in contact with Eagle Creek advocates who want to replicate the model.
00:24:04 Home Rule, State Preemption, and the IEDC’s War on Local Communities
- Sanders argues that home rule — the right of communities to make their own laws — is a unifying issue across the political spectrum, and that the state legislature’s repeated preemption of local authority (on environmental rules, puppy mills, and more) is the core problem.
- The IEDC functions as the mechanism of state imposition: it overrides community objections, hands out tax abatements, and operates with no meaningful accountability to affected residents.
- Sanders calls for abolishing the IEDC entirely — not reforming it — citing the IndyStar’s “Three Kings” reporting, which revealed that IEDC figures directed roughly $180 million to corporations they were personally connected to.
00:27:11 The Tax Abatement Contradiction and the Burden on Working People
- Scott lays out the contradiction: Indiana recruits companies to pay taxes here, then gives them tax abatements so they don’t — shifting the fiscal burden onto workers and residents rather than the corporations themselves.
- The abatements are presented as economic development but function as corporate welfare, often given to companies that were going to come anyway.
00:28:33 Eagle Creek Reservoir: The IEDC’s Next Target and Lessons for Indianapolis
- The IEDC, LEAP, Lebanon Utilities, and Citizens Energy were secretly negotiating a water deal for Eagle Creek before any Indianapolis residents knew about it — the same pattern of secrecy used in Tippecanoe County.
- Scott notes that 21 of 25 Indianapolis City-County Councilors signed a letter opposing the plan — a strong bipartisan rebuke that echoes the Tippecanoe resolution campaign.
- Sanders’ intelligence: at least one semiconductor company that had been eyeing the LEAP District has already walked away because the water supply issue remains unresolved.
00:30:19 Advice to Eagle Creek Organizers: See the IEDC as the Common Enemy
- Don’t let anyone convince you it’s a done deal. Stop the Water Steal didn’t guarantee a win — they just refused to accept defeat — and they succeeded.
- Organize broadly: write to all legislators and all candidates, not just your own representatives, and unite with groups across the state facing similar IEDC-driven disruptions.
- The key insight: data centers, carbon sequestration pipelines, water diversions, and semiconductor plants are all the same fight — the IEDC is the common thread, and that’s where pressure must be directed.
00:32:33 Whack-a-Mole: How the IEDC Targets Black Neighborhoods and Rural Communities
- Scott observes that IEDC projects consistently land in predominantly Black Indianapolis neighborhoods and rural communities — the least organized, most vulnerable areas — because that’s what happens when you play defense project-by-project.
- Sanders adds that both groups are being treated with contempt by the Republican supermajority: rural areas that vote Republican aren’t getting broadband, healthcare, or economic investment — just corporate playgrounds.
- The urban-rural divide that defines so much of American politics is actually a potential bridge here: both communities are being exploited by the same actors.
00:35:05 Devil’s Advocate: Governor Braun’s Water Reassurances and Sanders’ Rebuttal
- Scott presents Braun’s argument: the water is treated and returned, so the concern is overblown.
- Sanders’ response: wastewater treatment was built for microbiological threats, not the chemical challenges posed by modern manufacturing — PFAS, microplastics, and the proprietary chemicals used in semiconductor processes that we don’t even have full disclosure on.
- Data centers technically could recycle their water in closed systems, but there’s no requirement that they do, and many don’t.
00:37:21 Water Treatment, PFAS, and the Unknown Chemicals of Semiconductor Manufacturing
- The IEDC assured Tippecanoe County residents that transferring water from one watershed to another was fine — but there is no ecologist or scientist who would endorse cross-watershed diversion as safe practice.
- The semiconductor industry uses proprietary chemical processes that aren’t publicly disclosed; treating that return water is genuinely complex and unresolved science.
- Sanders’ broader objection isn’t alarmism — it’s that the lack of transparency from both corporations and government agencies makes informed evaluation impossible.
00:39:19 Arrogant Planning, the Great Lakes Gaffe, and the Return of the Bald Eagle
- The head of the IEDC during the pipeline fight told critics that as long as there’s water in the Great Lakes, there’s no problem — apparently unaware that the Great Lakes are not connected to the Wabash River watershed.
- Sanders contrasts that ignorance with a hopeful environmental story: bald eagles have returned to perch over the Wabash River near West Lafayette, something he hadn’t seen in his 30 years there — evidence that the river’s recovery from DDT and industrial contamination is real.
- The DDT lesson: corporations assured the public those chemicals were safe too, and it took community organizing and public scientific pressure to change course — the same dynamic playing out now.
00:41:52 Why the Legislature Needs a Scientist: Sanders Makes the Case
- Sanders argues that most issues facing society today — agriculture, genetic engineering, infectious disease, child mortality, healthcare infrastructure — have a scientific or technological basis that legislators need to understand firsthand, even if the solutions are political.
- He doesn’t claim the legislature needs to be all scientists; he argues it needs at least one person who can evaluate what government agencies and corporations are actually generating in terms of data.
- One of Stop the Water Steal’s underappreciated assets was its network of scientific experts — contacts Sanders still maintains and can deploy in the legislature.
00:44:10 Move Fast and Break Things: Corporate Hubris and the DDT Lesson
- Scott names the underlying attitude: Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” ethos applied to industrial development, with investors demanding returns now and consequences to be dealt with later — by someone else.
- The DDT contamination of the Wabash took decades to partially remediate; the corporations responsible were long gone.
- The parallel to current IEDC-driven development is direct: no long-term environmental planning, no accountability, no clawback provisions.
00:45:38 SK Hynix in West Lafayette: The Packaging Plant, the Rezoning Fight, and PRF’s Role
- SK Hynix’s West Lafayette facility is a chip packaging plant — less water-intensive than full semiconductor fabrication, but still using more water than all residential customers in West Lafayette combined; it’s eyeing the same Wabash aquifers.
- The city council rezoning fight lasted past 1 a.m., with overwhelming community opposition — and when asked what chemicals would be used, SK Hynix’s representatives said only “copper and alcohol,” an answer Sanders calls completely inadequate.
- The facility was sited in a residential neighborhood rather than the abundant open land in Tippecanoe County because the Purdue Research Foundation — which owned that specific land — wanted the financial proceeds; the Area Plan Commission had already voted against the rezoning, making the council’s approval an unprecedented override.
00:49:37 The Three Kings: IEDC Corruption, Chad Pittman, and the PRF Revolving Door
- The IndyStar’s “Three Kings” investigation documented that IEDC insiders directed approximately $180 million to corporations they were personally connected to — including one king writing a funding request letter from his own outside organization to himself at the IEDC.
- Chad Pittman, named as one of the Three Kings, is now the head of the Purdue Research Foundation — connecting the IEDC corruption story directly to the SK Hynix siting decision.
- Sanders calls it a revolving door of public money serving private interests, and says the fact that PRF continues to be run by someone implicated in that reporting is indefensible.
00:52:47 The Military-Industrial Angle: CHIPS Act, Crane, and PRF’s Defense Contractor Focus
- Scott notes the CHIPS and Science Act’s national security rationale — reshoring semiconductor manufacturing away from China and Taiwan — and flags Purdue’s position within that ecosystem alongside the Applied Research Institute and the Crane Naval Warfare Center.
- Sanders confirms: PRF has recruited almost exclusively military contractors — Rolls-Royce and Saab, which both exited the consumer vehicle business long ago and now primarily make aircraft engines and military equipment.
- Sanders isn’t opposed to national defense, but argues that a university conducting all its industrial recruitment in secret and focusing almost entirely on military contractors represents a lack of balance and a betrayal of the public-good mission.
00:54:51 Rolls-Royce, Saab, Tax Abatements, and Corporate Welfare Without Clawbacks
- Rolls-Royce was involved in the largest corporate bribery scandal in UK history, with U.S. involvement as well — not exactly a vetted partner for a public university.
- These corporations received tax abatements at levels out of proportion to the rest of the country, despite the fact that they were going to come to Purdue anyway — meaning the abatements were pure corporate welfare.
- The lack of clawback provisions is the tell: without them, corporations can pull up stakes before their tax abatement periods expire, as has happened repeatedly. Sanders points to Foxconn in Wisconsin as the cautionary tale, and argues that investing in existing Indiana businesses and entrepreneurs would produce better economic returns.
00:59:22 How to Support Dr. David Sanders and Follow-Up Campaign Notes
- The Republican primary for this seat saw $3 million spent on negative ads that Sanders says contained outright falsehoods about both candidates — meaning whoever emerges will have enormous resources.
- Follow the money: Sanders says donors supporting his opponents include corporations promoting carbon sequestration in Indiana; he’s running on small-dollar, citizen fundraising only.
Thanks again to Dr. Sanders for joining us. You can find out more about his campaign for State Senate at his campaign website https://davidsandersindiana.com. You can donate using his ActBlue page here: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/david-sanders-for-indiana-1 and follow him on social media at the following:
https://www.facebook.com/SandersforIndianaSenate
