Cheyenne halts all data-center wastewater after Meta contractor contaminates city system

Cheyenne, Wyoming, has reportedly suspended acceptance of industrial wastewater from all data-center cooling operations citywide, effective July 2. Utility officials traced a bacterial contamination of the city’s water-reclamation system to a construction contractor building Meta’s local data-center campus.

The move is a rare instance of a municipal utility halting a whole category of data-center discharge, and it lands as AI buildouts strain the water and power systems of the small cities courting them. The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities identified Goat Systems LLC, Meta Platforms’ construction entity for the campus, as the source of Cupriavidus gilardii, a bacterium found in the reclamation system during testing in February 2026. The board revoked Goat Systems’ discharge privileges on March 24, then on July 2 announced a citywide policy prohibiting wastewater from data-center fill-and-flush and closed-loop cooling systems.

Meta’s general contractor, Fortis, stopped discharging and began hauling wastewater offsite once notified, according to local reporting. Meta reportedly said it is “supporting the efforts of our general contractor, Fortis, to resolve this issue with the city of Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities.” Testing at the Dry Creek and Crow Creek reclamation facilities cleared in late June, and the reclaimed-water system is back online.

The contamination’s downstream effects have not been detailed publicly, and no first-party utility or Meta statement page was resolvable; the account rests on local and trade reporting. A city councilman, Pete Laybourn, called the episode “a very, very unpleasant surprise.” How the board’s policy resolves will set the terms other host cities cite when the next hyperscaler comes asking for a discharge permit.

The signal to watch is whether Cheyenne reopens data-center discharge on new conditions, or makes the ban a lasting limit on how the campuses dispose of cooling water.