The Indianapolis Airport Authority Board on March 21 authorized the executive director to enter into a utility reimbursement agreement with the City of Indianapolis Department of Public Utilities (Citizens Water) to design and construct a water-main extension that will provide a redundant water connection to the airport''The board approved the measure by roll call; the motion was made by Jeff Gaither and seconded by Ryan Goodwin and carried unanimously.

Board staff said the new connection will tie the terminal into a different pressure district, creating a true loop so that a single pressure-district failure would not shut down water service to the terminal campus. "The water connection though is not truly redundant. We have a 24-inch main that comes across the airfield. There are two connections to that main to the terminal, but it comes all off of one pressure district from Citizens. So if there is a more significant issue than just a line break, the entire pressure district goes down," a staff presenter said.

The project was described as part of a broader resiliency program prompted by nationwide lessons from the 2017 Atlanta outage. Officials said Citizens Water will perform design and construction; the airport will reimburse Citizens under the agreement. The authority included a $9 million budget estimate in its capital plan for the work. Staff said that preliminary design and a review of existing crossings indicate the final cost could be "a million or two" less if an existing pipe under I-70 can be used and boring is avoided.

Board members asked about timing and operations. Staff said Citizens will start design work within the next month or two; design is expected to take about nine months, followed by roughly a year to a year-and-a-half for construction and connection. Staff also explained that under normal operations only one supply would be active and a valve would separate the two sources; the redundant connection would be activated if service were interrupted on the primary feed.

Airport Executive Director Mario Rodriguez said the work is part of a continuing program to remove single points of failure across electrical, chilled-water and other systems that could disable terminal operations. He noted the airport's role in the state economy and said the airport is pursuing additional resilience projects and a FAA-funded resiliency study that will guide future capital planning.

The board approved the reimbursement agreement as an action item; staff said the item has been budgeted in prior capital plans and will proceed under the reimbursement arrangement with Citizens Water.