It's now no secret that a contractor working directly with Meta's upcoming data center campus is in the hot seat for contaminating Cheyenne's wastewater with potentially harmful bacteria; however, more information is coming out as this situation continues.
Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins said, "Data centers are kind of hyper under the microscope right now. And, you know, we're trying to make sure that data centers do good things for our community and to see something that happened. It was disappointing."
Identified by the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities as being the industrial user responsible for introducing the Cupriavidus gilardii bacterium through fill and flush operations at the data center site, Goat Systems LLC has since had its industrial discharge privileges revoked.
However, Meta has now appealed the Notice of Violation issued by BOPU, where Meta says, in part, that information such as sampling data and analytical reports that show the construction site was the source has not been released to them or the public.
Meta also claims the violation identifies the wrong industrial user, as the appeal states the project's general contractor, Fortis Construction Inc., held the temporary authorization to discharge, adding that third-party testing done at the same time as BOPU's did not detect the bacterium.
However, on the same day the appeal was filed, BOPU told everyone present at the Cheyenne City Council meeting that more details on its side of things will soon be released.
Mayor Collins added, "They are going to do a full timeline, either by the end of this week, or maybe Monday of next week, where they can really talk about exactly what they know, what they knew it, and what they've done since."
As of now, this appeal process is still active, where Meta is wanting BOPU to vacate the Notice and significant noncompliance against Goat Systems and to accept its payment of 10,000 under protest and without admission of liability.
A statement was sent from a Meta spokesperson that reads, “We are committed to being a good neighbor in Cheyenne, which includes helping care for the local watershed. When the issue was first raised, our contractor immediately stopped releasing water into the wastewater system and hauled it offsite. Subsequent independent, third-party testing — including at least one test conducted in conjunction with the Board of Public Utilities — detected no bacteria. However, the Board has not shared all of its underlying testing data or other information with Meta, our contractor, or the public. It is important that the community has all the information about what happened.”
Wyoming News Now has reached out to BOPU for comment, but they say due to the appeal being active, they currently cannot comment on the matter.
The full appeal can be found here.
Republished with permission from Wyoming News Now, a TV news outlet covering the Cheyenne and Casper areas.
