CHEYENNE — The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities revoked Meta's authority to discharge waste into the city's water treatment facilities and adopted a new policy prohibiting certain wastewater discharges from datacenters. This action follows the detection of Cupiavidus gilardii bacteria in wastewater discharged into public sewers from the cooling system of the datacenter campus in the High Plains Business Park on February 1, 2026.

Officials identified Goat Systems LLC as the contractor responsible for the discharge. Meta ordered its general contractor, Fortis, to cooperate with the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities. A Meta spokesperson stated in a statement, "When the board shared that it found a substance in the city's wastewater - not public drinking water - Fortis immediately stopped discharging industrial wastewater and began hauling it offsite."

The spokesperson added, "Fortis also began its own water testing with an independent environmental specialist, which has found no trace of the substance." Meta stated that contamination by Cupriavidus gilardii bacteria did not affect drinking water supplies. Frank Strong, the engineering and water resource division manager for the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities, stated that it was not known when the bacterium entered the water, only that it was present during routine fecal bacteria testing on the discharged water.

Strong said, "The concern we have with our reuse system is we put it into aerosol, where we spray it onto the grass, and that increases the potential for health issues." He added that the city's irrigation program had resumed now that the datacenter's wastewater was no longer being discharged. The spokesperson said, "Meta is committed to being a good neighbor in Cheyenne, including through the protection of local water resources, and will continue encouraging collaboration between Fortis and the board until this situation is resolved."

The new city policy prohibits wastewater discharges from datacenters using closed loop cooling systems and fill and flush systems. These new regulations require companies using closed-loop cooling systems to build and implement separate collection systems that direct water from cooling equipment or associated floor drains into storage tanks and offsite disposal.