Meta‘s massive AI data center in Wyoming is facing scrutiny after an unexpected contamination incident emerged during construction.
The Mark Zuckerberg-owned company is developing a 715,000sq ft campus in Cheyenne that is set to go online next year, but its contractor has come under fire after city officials traced wastewater containing a rare bacterium to the project.
Known as Cupriavidus gilardii, the naturally occurring bacterium is typically found in soil and water. While harmless to most healthy people, it can cause severe pneumonia, bloodstream and lung infections, and, in rare cases, death among people with weakened immune systems.
Cheyenne’s Board of Public Utilities (BOPU) said the bacterium was found in wastewater discharged by Goat Systems, a contractor working on Meta’s $800 million data center.
According to the BOPU, the bacterium was first detected during routine wastewater sampling in late February, but was only announced last Thursday.
Meta said its general contractor, Fortis, began hauling industrial wastewater offsite and that independent testing found no trace of the substance to date.
Officials stressed that it did not contaminate the city’s drinking water, but said it disrupted the municipal reclaimed water system and required months of cleanup.
However, the city permanently revoked Meta’s authorization to discharge wastewater from its fill-and-flush operations into Cheyenne’s treatment system, where the water is recycled and later used to irrigate parks and other public spaces.
Meta’s planned 715,000sq ft campus in Cheyenne is set to go online next year. Its contractor has come under fire after wastewater containing a rare bacterium was traced to the project
A Meta spokesman told the Daily Mail: ‘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.
‘Fortis also began its own water testing with an independent environmental specialist, which has found no trace of the substance.
‘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.’
It comes as AI data centers face mounting scrutiny across the US for their enormous demands on local water and power supplies.
According to Data Center Map, there are nearly 4,500 data centers nationwide, with some facilities consuming as much as 300,000 gallons of water a day, roughly the same amount used by 1,000 households.
Goat Systems LLC is the corporate entity Meta uses for the construction of the center, dubbed Project Cosmo.
Officials said the contaminated wastewater was discharged during a fill-and-flush process used to prepare the data center’s cooling system before it goes online.
Officials stressed that it did not contaminate the city’s drinking water, but said it disrupted the municipal reclaimed water system and required months of cleanup
The procedure involves filling the cooling pipes with water, flushing them to remove debris, and then sending the used water into the sewer system.
Although the wastewater contained Cupriavidus gilardii, officials said they still do not know where the bacterium originated.
The water used in the process had been purchased from Cheyenne’s Board of Public Utilities.
While the discovery was made earlier this year, officials noted that it took months of investigation to determine who was behind the contamination, leading to last week’s announcement.
The revelation that the contamination was traced to Meta’s data center caught Cheyenne officials off guard, with City Councilman Pete Laybourn calling the news ‘a very, very unpleasant surprise.’
The Mark Zuckerberg-owned company said it is committed to being a good neighbor in Cheyenne
Laybourn told the Cowboy State Daily that he was already wary about some of the arrangements the city made with the data center operators.
‘It’s about the last thing we need right now,’ he said. ‘But it’s a reality we’re going to have to work through.’
A March 2026 study in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases identified 32 documented cases of human Cupriavidus infections worldwide, finding that ten patients died after developing severe complications.
Researchers stressed, however, that nearly all of the patients had underlying medical conditions or weakened immune systems.
One of the earliest reported fatalities involved a 12-year-old American girl who died from sepsis after contracting a Cupriavidus gilardii infection during a family vacation in Europe, according to a 2010 report published in the National Library of Medicine.
