Wyoming’s lone U.S. House representative is demanding answers from Mark Zuckerberg on a Cheyenne-area data center wastewater contamination incident that caused the city’s reuse system to shut down for months.
The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities (BOPU) issued a public notice June 26 that laboratory staff identified a bacterium, Cupriavaidus gilardii, in a wastewater sampling.
The board on July 2 identified the source of the initial contamination as Goat System LLC — a Meta data center company in the development known as Project Cosmo.
That public announcement about the contamination came more than four months after the Meta contractor — which is building an $800 million data center in south Cheyenne — disrupted the city’s reclaimed wastewater system with the rare bacterial contaminant.
The board had revoked Goat Systems’ industrial discharge privileges for fill-and-flush operations, and Cheyenne’s reuse water system was taken offline.
U.S. House Rep. Harriet Hageman demanded answers in a Thursday letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
“Many are rightfully concerned about high water consumption rates by data centers in our communities where every drop of water is accounted for and needed,” wrote Hageman, “so I am even more concerned that this contamination seemingly came from your facility’s closed-loop cooling system, a technology that is marketed as being a solution to high data center water consumption rates.”
For more from Congressman Hageman see our interview with her Ep499
