Officials in Wyoming allegedly traced bacteria-contaminated water to a data center operated by a Meta contractor. “Officials say wastewater from Meta’s AI data center flooded the town’s water pipes with the bacterium Cupriavidus gilardii, and they found the company violated industrial waste regulations,” More Perfect Union claimed. Meta’s AI data center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, has been caught infecting the town’s water supply with deadly bacteria. Officials say wastewater from Meta’s AI data center flooded the town’s water pipes with the bacterium Cupriavidus gilardii, and they found the company violated… — More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 7, 2026 More from The Guardian: The incident prompted water authorities in Cheyenne to implement strict safety regulations on how wastewater from such projects is disposed of, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, which first reported the incident. Meta has ordered its general contractor, Fortis, to cooperate with the Cheyenne board of public utilities (BOPU) to ensure there is no repeat, the newspaper said, insisting it wanted to be “a good neighbor”. The company, however, noted that contamination by the rare but naturally occurring Cupriavidus gilardii bacterium did not affect drinking water supplies, and that its contractor’s own water testing by an independent environmental specialist found no trace of it. The incident comes amid growing nationwide backlash to the construction of resource-hungry datacenters, which opponents say place unbearable demands on local water and energy supplies. According to Data Center Map, the US has almost 4,500 datacenters, some consuming up to 300,000 gallons of water each day, equivalent to the demands of about 1,000 households. The Cheyenne contamination was discovered in February during routine testing of wastewater discharged into public sewers from the cooling system of the datacenter campus in the High Plains Business Park, the Tribune Eagle reported. “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,” a Meta spokesperson told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. “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 spokesperson added. “The Cheyenne, WY, Board of Public Utilities just posted a public notice that Meta (through its shell company Goat LLC) contaminated the wastewater treatment system in late February. They didnt say a word to the public until last week and didnt release the name of the offender, a data center, until today. This was done to suppress information when the Cheyenne City Council voted on data centers last month,” The Blaze senior editor Daniel Horowitz commented. “Cheyenne is being targeted for dozens of these things and they are telling people to shut up and all their concerns are farcical. In general, this is what we are seeing throughout the country, as people want to slow things down to understand the effects of such a giant footprint pretty much proposed in every county across the country (but multiples in some parts), they just lie and say there are zero problems,” he continued. “The lack of transparency is insane. Neither political party is going to succeed in getting away with this,” Horowitz added. The Cheyenne, WY, Board of Public Utilities just posted a public notice that Meta (through its shell company Goat LLC) contaminated the wastewater treatment system in late February. They didnt say a word to the public until last week and didnt release the name of the offender, a… pic.twitter.com/eondAKqZNV — Daniel Horowitz (@RMConservative) July 2, 2026 Wyoming Tribune Eagle shared further: Strong said Goat Systems discharged fill-and-flush water into the city’s sanitary sewer, and that discharged water already contained Cupriavidus gilardii. “As soon as we became aware of the bacteria, and then of where it was coming from, we shut them down immediately,” Strong told the WTE. However, Strong said he does not know where the bacteria originated. All BOPU officials know is that the water Goat Systems discharged contained it. That water was purchased from BOPU, he said. Betsey Hale, CEO of Cheyenne LEADS, said she wanted to emphasize that the incident occurred during construction of the Meta facility, rather than during operation of the data center, which is not yet online. Hale also emphasized that Cupriavidus gilardii is naturally occurring. “It wasn’t something that they created through the construction process,” Hale said. “It’s already out there. It came into the system at a level that was monitored, caught and needed to be remediated.” Strong said BOPU was not specifically testing for Cupriavidus gilardii. Rather, it was discovered while staff were conducting routine fecal bacteria testing. “This isn’t something we normally test for,” Strong said. “… We actually had to go through quite a process to figure out what it was.” He said the incident is highly unusual. The post Red State Data Center Allegedly Linked To Bacteria-Contaminated Water appeared first on 100PercentFedUp.com.