A Meta-linked data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, contaminated the city’s reclaimed wastewater system with the rare bacterium Cupriavidus gilardii, forcing local authorities to spend months cleaning the system and investigating the incident.
At the beginning of July, Cheyenne’s Board of Public Utilities (BOPU) announced that it would no longer accept industrial wastewater associated with data center cooling systems until further notice.
The decision came after Goat Systems LLC, a contractor working for Meta, was found responsible for contaminating the city’s reclaimed wastewater system. The company oversees construction of Meta’s $800 million data center campus in southern Cheyenne. BOPU said the contractor had committed a “significant violation” of the city’s industrial wastewater pretreatment regulations.
The bacterium was first detected in February during routine testing for fecal contamination. According to Frank Strong, BOPU’s Engineering and Water Resources Manager, the agency does not normally test specifically for Cupriavidus gilardii, making its discovery in the wastewater system highly unusual.
Over the following months, the city carried out an extensive cleanup while investigating the source of the contamination. The bacterium also disrupted operations at local wastewater treatment facilities.
Human infections caused by Cupriavidus gilardii are extremely rare. However, the bacterium is resistant to multiple antibiotics and can pose a serious threat to people with weakened immune systems. According to a study published in Infectious Disease Reports, the mortality rate in such cases exceeds 30%.
City officials emphasized that the bacterium was not detected in Cheyenne’s drinking water supply. The contamination was limited to the reclaimed wastewater system, which likely explains why no confirmed human infections have been reported.
The incident comes as data centers face growing scrutiny across the United States. A recent Gallup survey found that 71% of Americans oppose building AI data centers in their local communities, with environmental concerns—particularly water consumption—being the primary reason.
According to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a single large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, roughly the same amount used daily by a city of 50,000 residents.
Concerns are further amplified by an analysis from The Guardian, which found that most newly planned data centers are set to be built in areas that experienced drought conditions over the past year.
Water use is not the only issue. Large data centers have also been linked to rising electricity costs for nearby residents and increased noise pollution, as their cooling systems and diesel generators can be heard from hundreds of feet away.
