By Carolina Boelter
Laramie Boomerang
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

LARAMIE — The Wyoming Outdoor Council hosted a public forum in the Albany County Public Library Monday evening with a focus on hyperscale data centers and what their growth could mean for Wyoming communities across the state.

It was the first of eight community forums to address responsible data center development scheduled by the Outdoor Council, which also includes planned events for Cheyenne, Casper, Cody, Evanston, Sheridan, Gillette and Lander. 

Most are through September and October, with Lander’s set for Dec. 1.

John Burrows, energy and climate director for the Wyoming Outdoor Council, opened the forum by saying the issue “needs to be taken seriously,” but he also clarified that the event was not meant to become a debate solely about artificial intelligence.

He briefly explained that the purpose was to explore where the issue actually is in the minds of people in communities. He said residents are concerned about “where data centers are being developed” and “what are the reasonable guardrails we should expect.”

Jocelyn Wulf, WOC data center campaign manager, explained why these facilities are different from older data centers. She explained that a medium-sized data center might use 5-10 megawatts of electricity, while hyperscale centers can use hundreds of megawatts or gigawatts.

Project Tembo, the Tallgrass and Google project outside of Cheyenne, plans to use about 2.7 gigawatts and could eventually grow to 10 gigawatts. Wulf called that “several Wyomings worth of power” and “a mind-boggling amount of power.”

The WOC’s white paper, written by Wulf, backs those figures, detailing that Wyoming has become attractive to developers because the state consists of “abundant land, limited regulatory burden, reliable energy and fiber availability, and sales tax incentives” (Wyoming Outdoor Council, August 2026).

The main concerns detailed during the WOC presentation were water, energy, air and governance. Wulf said water is usually the first thing people ask about because “this is a semi-arid state” and water is “a really critical resource here.”

Wulf mentioned that closed loop cooling may reduce direct water consumption, but reporting is still the problem, as chemical discharge could include PFAs, also referred to as “forever chemicals.” 

She used the Cheyenne wastewater contamination earlier this year connected to a Meta data center contractor as an example of why public monitoring matters.

“Meta did not report this,” she said. “The contractor did not report this. It was Cheyenne’s Board of Public Utilities who caught this.”

Energy usage is another set of worries, as data centers can build private natural gas plants or connect to the grid. If they are to connect to the grid, Wulf explained that utilities may need “new substations, new transmission lines,” and those costs could fall on “your average Joe ratepayers.”

Black Hills Energy and Rocky Mountain Power have used large-load tariffs, but Wulf said these protections are voluntary, not required by state law. The white paper also warns about “islanding,” when private power systems operate outside normal utility planning and make the grid less transparent and harder to manage.

The question-and-answer period conducted by the group quickly showed that many people in attendance were less interested in abstract benefits and more worried about who carries the risk. One individual asked about emissions standards for generators.

Wulf answered, “Under the Clean Air Act, we’re also subject to the federal Clean Air Act here,” but added that with many diesel generators operating together, “we’re looking at some gnarly impacts there potentially.”

Another concern from citizens was transparency about water usage and what laws would require public reporting. With that, Wulf admitted, “I’m not actually familiar with the specific state statutes,” but said the key issue is that reporting is “not mandatory” and that companies may already do internal testing, but “it would just be necessary for them to disclose that to the public.”

A frequently voiced concern in the room was whether the state should try to stop data centers completely, as one attendee asked for “one thing that says, ‘no, forget it, go away.’” Wulf responded that the concern was valid, but she added that the projects may bring economic benefits and the practical path is to secure protections while communities still have leverage.

That led into discussion of what Wulf described as a Community Benefit Agreement, a contract that lets a community negotiate protections before a project is approved. The white paper uses as a model Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where developers agreed to $20 million in community contributions, a 20,000-gallon-per-day water cap per campus, local hiring, renewable energy commitments and penalties for noncompliance.

During a discussion about if county residents do not ask for anything, “you will not get anything,” one person asked what practical benefit a data center would bring without jobs or a CBA. Wulf said, “I think you know the answer to that question, which is none.”

Attendees also questioned whether local governments have enough power or expertise to oversee data center operations, as one attendee described the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s Industrial Siting Act as weaker in practice than it sounds and urged people to read Title 35 — Public Health and Safety and study how impact assistance can fail. Another participant expressed concern that data center developers are pushing review away from the state and onto local governments, calling it a “divide and conquer” situation. To that, Wulf agreed that when company sites are in industrial parks, they can dodge state-level comprehensive review, thus leaving local administrators who “might not have enough local expertise.”

Representatives of the WOC urged residents to begin preparing for these massive centers. 

Wulf detailed Gov. Mark Gordon’s executive order “Data Centers the Wyoming Way” as a “step in the right direction,” but it “lacks regulatory teeth.”

Aidan McGuire, the WOC field organizer who set up an activity section, added that if saying no does not succeed, communities need backup plans by saying, “It is best to have a contingency for your contingency for your contingency.”

For Albany County, that means watching industrial park proposals, asking county commissioners direct questions, pushing for enforceable CBAs, demanding water and energy disclosures, and closing the Industrial Siting Act loophole.

The above story may be used ONLY by members of the Wyoming News Exchange or with the express consent of the newspaper of its origin.