Daily Smile

[{"type":"text","text":"Now let's all enjoy a full minute of birds...."}]

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>Daily Smile: Tuesday, January 21, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Now let's all enjoy a full minute of birds....

Daily Smile: Tuesday, January 21, 2025

 Now let's all enjoy a full minute of birds....

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Government & Politics

Speculation is growing over whether a data center could be linked to a rare bacterium discovered in Cheyenne's reuse wastewater system earlier this year, as city officials continue to withhold the identity of the industrial user responsible for the discharge.

Four days after the Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities publicly disclosed the contamination, which happened in February, officials have yet to identify either the company or the industry involved, saying legal and regulatory reviews are still underway.

"It would be likely that a newer industry would be responsible," said Jonathan Brant, a University of Wyoming associate professor of civil and architectural engineering who specializes in water treatment. "Data center discharges would be the first place I would look."

The Board of Public Utilities has fielded multiple public records requests as residents demand to know what industry is behind the hazardous discharge, who the offender is and why the public wasn’t notified as soon as the contaminant was discovered in February.

“Citizens deserve to know what industry contaminated the wastewater,” said Exie Brown Jr., a Republican vying for a House District 9 seat on the Wyoming House of Representatives.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Background"}]

Last week, the Board of Public Utilities reminded its customers via public notice that discharge of hazardous substances into the sanitary sewer system is prohibited.

The notice came four months after its lab staff detected an “unusual bacterium” during routine wastewater sampling in February.

The mystery bacterium was found to be cupriavidus gilardii, a naturally occurring organism commonly found in soil and groundwater environments, known for its high resistance to metals. It has been associated with industrial applications involving metal reduction processes, including some advanced manufacturing and industrial systems.

“It is new to us,” said Erin Lamb, BOPU’s administrative and public affairs coordinator. “We have a pretty robust lab and sampling protocol. It’s something that popped up and we thought it was odd, so we reached out to the public health lab.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The city’s reuse water system was taken offline as a precaution."}]

According to the public notice, BOPU staff have undertaken “significant remediation efforts,” draining and disinfecting the entire reuse water system and the city’s Prairie View retention pond to eliminate bacterial presence.

Reuse water irrigation services resumed Monday, after consultation with the Laramie County Public Health Department. By Tuesday, the retention pond was being refilled.

The contaminant affected the city’s reusable water system – water used strictly for irrigation, Lamb said.

Lamb said people are confusing the wastewater system with the drinking-water system, and she reiterated that the hazard affected the wastewater reuse system only.

“I think that’s been very confusing to people. It’s not our water system. It’s our reuse wastewater system," she said.

The source was eventually traced to an “industrial user within the system.” 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mystery Industrial User"}]

Lamb told Cowboy State Daily the BOPU’s holdout to publicly identify the industrial user behind the contaminant is to ensure all local, state and federal regulations are being followed.

“We have to make sure our legalities are covered,” she said. “It is something we are right in the middle of.”

She said the purpose of Friday’s notice was more about reminding the public that discharging hazardous materials into the wastewater system is prohibited and less about the biohazard that had been discovered.

Still, news of the hazard stoked frustration, fear and confusion.

Conversations have played out on social media, with some people assuming a data center is behind the contaminant. Others called for voting out all city council members and Mayor Patrick Collins for their strong pro-data center stance. Some, like Cheyenne resident Jeffrey Scott, say data centers don’t use chemicals for refining metals.

[{"type":"text","text":"“We’re definitely aware of the public interest,” Lamb said."}]

Her office has received multiple public-records requests from residents demanding to know who is behind the hazardous discharge.

[{"type":"text","text":"One such request is from Brown."}]

Brown told Cowboy State Daily he is seeking information about how the discharge happened, adding, “Transparency should be the default and not the exception. The City of Cheyenne and BOPU work for the people and not the other way around.”

In his own public statement, Brown said, “BOPU’s press release spends considerable time reminding everyday residents and small businesses what not to put down a drain, while deliberately keeping the identity of the actual responsible party hidden behind vague language about ‘an industrial user’.”

Lamb said her office is following all the proper regulatory procedures and is undergoing a legal review to determine what information it can release.

“I understand the frustration,” she said. “But to do it right, we have to follow those procedures.”

Lamb also would not identify the offending industry.

“I can’t confirm anything at this point in terms of the entity’s name or industry,” she said. “We ask for patience. We just want to make sure we do everything by the book." 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why So Long?"}]

Lamb told Cowboy State Daily that as soon as the contaminant was discovered, staff sent it to the state lab for testing.

Hazardous materials being discharged into the city sewer is not uncommon, she said, and it took a week to 10 days for the lab to confirm the contaminant was cupriavidus gilardii.

Lamb did not directly confirm with Cowboy State Daily why the public wasn’t notified about the contaminant until four months after it was discovered.

“This has been a process,” she said, adding that attention to local, state and federal regulations has been the focus of the probe.

According to the BOPU’s statement, research shows that while infections caused by cupriavidus gilardii are extremely rare the bacterium may pose health risks to immunocompromised individuals and the elderly through direct exposure.

According to the public notice, hazardous discharge violations can result in fines, penalties, liability for damages and potentially being disconnected from city water and sewer services.

The user behind this incident will face a series of fees, based on what it cost the city to remediate, Lamb said. She didn’t know an exact dollar amount.

“Violations can become extremely costly,” Lamb said. “We’re pretty firm on not putting that cost on our ratepayers.”

The user is also cut off from the city’s sewer system, their discharge permit terminated.

Lamb said that means the user will have to find another way to dispose of discharge, such as utilizing holding tanks or trucking waste to a facility that can treat and/or dispose of hazardous materials.

“It’s something that the Board of Public Utilities is not willing to risk happening again,” she said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Common\/Not Common"}]

The Board of Public Utilities’ wastewater reclamation facilities have encountered a variety of hazardous materials discharged into the sewer system over the past two decades. Hazardous materials include gasoline, petroleum products, grease and concrete.

“This is unfortunately not an anomaly,” Lamb said. “It isn’t a once-in-a-while kind of thing."

[{"type":"text","text":"Every utility system experiences this kind of thing frequently, she said."}]

“It’s an amazing wonder how some of these things get put down into the sewer system,” Lamb said.

However, the specific bacterium identified in this instance is an anomaly.

“It’s a naturally occurring thing,” Lamb said. “We’ve just never seen it before. We really had to do some research.”

Brant, the water-treatment specialist at the University of Wyoming, told Cowboy State Daily the organism requires a metal-rich water system to thrive.

“Data centers, in general, can supply such environments for their heat-exchange systems,” he said. “Copper has historically been a widely used heat-exchange material, though other metals can be used as well, depending on the system design.”

As of Tuesday, a city water reclamation manager confirmed that water testing showed the bacterium was no longer present at either of the city’s two wastewater facilities — Crow Creek and Dry Creek.

Dry Creek Wastewater Plant IMG 6817 6 30 26

<title>Cheyenne Officials Haven't Said Who Polluted Its Reuse Water System | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Speculation is growing over whether a data center could be linked to pollution discovered in Cheyenne's reuse wastewater system earlier this year, as city officials haven't reported the identity of the industrial user responsible for the discharge.

Cheyenne Officials Haven't Said Who Polluted Its Reuse Water System

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Wildlife

A rancher near Choteau, Montana, caught video of six grizzlies strolling across his calving lot behind his barn late Monday, and said there were as many as seven bears on his property that night.

The next morning, rancher Neal Collins said agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed as many as 10 grizzlies out of patches of brush across the road from his place.

Collins said no people or livestock were attacked by the bears on his place, and FWP used non-lethal “cracker” shotgun shells to scare off the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A ‘Herd’ Of Grizzlies"}]

Sparky Wallace, a friend of Collins who also lives near Choteau, somewhat humorously described the group of grizzlies as a “herd.”

He told Cowboy State Daily he and some of his neighbors have had encounters with multiple bears, as the number of grizzlies out on the prairie has steadily increased.  

Chad White, a bear management specialist with Montana FWP, said the bears on Collins’ property were probably a “couple of family groups that have been hanging out in the area.”

Meaning, they were likely two related adult females such as “a mother and daughter” and their cubs, White said.

The Choteau area has been busy with bear activity this spring and summer. The bears wander from the Rocky Mountain Front onto the prairie along the Teton River, which flows past Choteau. 

The bears might be feeding on green vegetation and other natural food sources, then taking shelter in brush patches.

“It may be that he (Collins) has the natural shelter for day bedding and they were traveling around the area,” White said. 

White said the FWP bear manager responding to Collins’ call told him as many as 10 grizzlies fled once the hazing stared.

FWP personnel fired cracker shells into the brush where the bears were holed up. Cracker shells fire a small explosive charge with a delayed fuse, designed to explode in the air and ward off predators such as bears and wolves.

“The six or seven bears in the family groups ran off in one direction, and two or three more ran off in another direction,” he said.

It’s not known where the other two or three bears might have come from, White added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Alarm Barks"}]

Collins said he was first alerted to the bears’ presence Monday when one of his dogs started frantically barking at about 9:30 p.m.

“We’ve got this one dog that’s supposed to be a cow dog, but she’s really not,” he said. “She was just barking, barking, barking. She barks on occasion, but not like that.” 

He said he stepped outside to investigate and saw a “flash of a bear.”

So, he immediately went back into his house, shooing the dog inside with him.

A camera he has mounted on the backside of his barn caught video and photos of the bears.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘You Get Immune To It’"}]

Collins’ ranch is about 35 miles out on the prairie from the Rocky Mountain front.

Grizzlies are usually associated with mountain habitat. However, they were originally a Great Plains species, and were driven into the mountains as the West was settled.

Grizzlies have been growing in number and expanding their range in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho in recent decades. In Montana, they’ve been pushing ever-farther onto the prairies.

Collins said his father was in his 70s before he ever saw a grizzly anywhere near Choteau. But the bears have become a common sight of late.

When asked if having the bears around worried him, Collins said, “I suppose, but you get immune to it.”

Even so, he’s not happy about the growing number of prairie grizzlies.

“There here, even though I don’t want them here,” he said.

In Wyoming, grizzlies attacking cattle is frequently listed as the leading cause of human-bear conflict.

Collins said he hasn’t lost any livestock to bears yet.

"Even so, they sure don’t help them (the cattle) even if they don’t kill them,” he said. "They move through the cattle herd and stir them up.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Bird Hunting Gets Wild"}]

North-central Montana is a bird hunter’s paradise. And in decades past, grizzlies would have been the furthest things from bird hunters’ minds.

That’s not the case any longer. In 2023, 

 between bird and whitetail deer hunters in separate incidents.

Those occurred in the vicinity of the Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area. It’s between Choteau and Fairfield, Montana, about 40 miles west of Great Falls.

Collins said that several years ago, a bird hunter had to shoot and kill a charging grizzly across the road from his place.

“He ended up with a scratch on his arm, because the last shot was right at the end of the gun barrel,” he said.

Wallace, a horse trainer and saddle maker, said he’s run into multiple grizzlies while bird hunting.

“I hunt ducks a lot. And even on the little prairie potholes out here, you’ve got to walk in there loaded and ready for bears,” he said.

Herd of grizzlies 2 6 30 26

<title>Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Montana rancher Neal Collins said a camera on his barn captured a "herd" of seven grizzlies on his property Monday night. The next morning, agents from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks hazed 10 grizzlies out of brush across the road from his place.

Holy Cow! Montana Rancher Spots 'Herd' Of 7 Grizzlies On Property

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Crime & Courts

Courts

The Wyoming Republican Party is appealing a judge’s ruling that state laws governing major party leadership elections apply to it. 

Uinta County District Court Judge James Kaste 

 that the Hot Springs County Republican Party’s 2025 leadership election in which non-precinct committee people were allowed to vote was not legal. 

The Wyoming Republican Party’s Dispute Resolution Committee had insisted that the election was legal and upheld it. While the election didn’t square with state law, it squared with the party’s bylaws. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The judge ordered the state party to follow state law over its bylaws. "}]

The Wyoming Republican Party informed Kaste’s court Friday that it’s asking a higher tribunal, the Wyoming Supreme Court, to review his order. 

“Through undersigned counsel, notice is hereby given that Defendants Wyoming Republican Party, Wyoming Republican Party State Central Committee, and Wyoming Republican Party Dispute Resolution Committee appeal the Court’s 

” says the Friday motion by the party’s attorney, Thomas Szott of The Bernhoft Law Firm. 

Now the party is waging multiple legal challenges in which it argues that it may follow its bylaws over Wyoming law. 

Earlier this month, the Wyoming GOP challenged the Secretary of State’s Office in federal court in an 

 a law barring major parties from financially backing one of their affiliated candidates over another in the primary election cycle. 

Each party can bankroll the nominees its registrants choose at the primary election in the three months between the primary and general election — but not before. 

That law has been interpreted over the years to equate to a ban on the party endorsing specific candidates in the primary cycle, GOP Chair Bryan Miller told convention attendees in April. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Well That Depends"}]

Whether political parties’ associational and free-speech rights rise above the state laws that govern them is a recurring judicial topic nationwide. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The answer is sometimes, according to Kaste’s May 29 order. "}]

Kaste noted that Wyoming election law doesn’t dictate the state party’s membership directly. 

Freedom of association is a right, and it gives political parties some protection from state infringement, noted Kaste from a 1986 case called Tashjian v. Republican Party of Connecticut. 

But courts also use a balancing test called the Anderson-Burdick test when parties assert this right, and they consider how burdensome the state’s laws are on that right. 

If the burden is severe, the court judges the state’s infringement under a rigorous constitutional standard that most laws do not survive, called strict scrutiny.

But if the state is only imposing a “lesser burden” on the party, then the state’s important regulatory interests are usually enough to justify “reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions,” Kaste noted from an earlier case. 

State party leaders who were sued in this case claimed Wyoming violated the party’s rights. 

“Defendants are incorrect,” wrote Kaste.

The state laws impose minimal burdens on the party’s associational rights, and the state’s important regulatory interests justify them “amply,” said the judge. 

He added that the party relied on oblique cases while ignoring cases “that are more squarely on point.”

Wyoming law lays some tasks and formational requirements on the party, but the party’s role in filling vacancies is a privilege in which the state has an important interest, he added. 

The Wyoming laws challenged in this case impose only a minimal burden on the party, says Kaste’s order. 

The state has a legitimate interest in how office vacancies are filled, he wrote. 

“It would be a real problem if a vacancy occurred in a public office and the State had no one to call,” Kaste said, adding that the biennial election also ensures orderly election tasks, like nominating presidential electors before general elections

But Kaste’s order doesn’t address the endorsement and financial backing issue the party has raised in federal, not state court. That case is ongoing. 

Wyoming GOP Headquarters 5 6 30 26

<title>Wyoming Republican Party Appeals Judge's Order Telling It To Follow State Law | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The Wyoming Republican Party is appealing a judge’s ruling that its rules don’t trump state law in electing its leaders. Now the party is waging multiple legal challenges in which it argues that it may follow its bylaws over Wyoming law. 

Wyoming Republican Party Appeals Judge's Order Telling It To Follow State Law

Politics

Some Democrats nationally are calling for a “schism,” 

 growing socialist movement in the party.

Wyoming Democrats told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that there’s no similar call within the Cowboy State’s blue party.

They gave different reasons as to why - ranging from their party's low numbers, to Wyoming's unique culture, to the need for pragmatism in the state and the West. 

“No (we’re not divorcing). There’s like three of us,” said former Wyoming Attorney General Pat Crank, who served under Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal and is a moderate Democrat himself.

“It’s hard to fight when there’s only three of you. It’s such a non-factor,” he said.

[{"type":"text","text":"But First, The Divorce …"}]

Former President Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville last 

week lamented the intense media attention

 on the New York Democratic primary election where, as The Associated Press put it, “New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s slate of fiery progressives swept establishment-backed Democrats.”  

Carville in a video interview said, “The idea — the idea that we must neglect … all the huge, phenomenal success we’ve had and declare that the party is now under the control of a Democratic Socialist of New York City is insane.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The Mamdani wing of the party is too extreme for Carville, he indicated."}]

“Not only are they not Democrats, they wish Democrats poorly,” said Carville. “Let’s negotiate the terms of a schism here.”

He said he’s “enthusiastic” about questioning the policies of Israeli leadership, but isn’t comfortable being in a party that denies the Israeli state’s right to exist.

Conservative USA Today columnist Nicole Russell 

 at how readily Democratic congressional leaders are welcoming the far-left candidates who still have a general election ahead of them.  

[{"type":"text","text":"What Kinda Tent Y'all In? "}]

The Wyoming Democratic Party is a big collaborative tent, the party’s communications Mandy Weaver said in a Tuesday phone interview.

New York is “far removed from the things that happen in our state, and as Wyoming Democrats, we’ve always been very different from a lot of the other states,” said Weaver. “Because we are so small

[{"type":"text","text":"Disagreements surface, said Weaver, and “we hammer them out.”"}]

She couldn’t imagine anyone calling for a divorce of the Wyoming Democratic Party, she added. She pointed to the 

, which she said comprises “Wyoming values” and nothing extreme.

Weaver called Wyoming’s Democratic elected officials “very solution oriented.”

State Rep. Ken Chestek, D-Laramie, echoed those notions in his own Tuesday interview. He also said he and the Democrats he knows “respect the cowboy way and the code of the West.”

Chestek said he also believes the term “socialism” has been weaponized, and he voiced a desire for more nuanced discussions of public benefits.

Sen. Chris Rothfuss, also of Laramie, is one of two Democrats in the state Legislature’s 31-member upper chamber.

He said that because Democratic policy-makers prefer to focus on people and their specific needs, the party’s policy goals in Wyoming are bound to be distinct from elsewhere.

“Wyoming is not New York City, so what the people need in New York City is going to be very different from what the people need in the state of Wyoming,” he said, adding with a chuckle, “Our people want access to public lands. I don’t know that that’s necessarily a top issue in New York City, as an example.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Whether Purists Are Good For Everyone Else"}]

Foraying into some analysis, Rothfuss said the Democratic Party nationally is searching for identity and leadership.

 The lack of identity “leads to challenges for identifying that leadership,” said Rothfuss.

Each major party contains factions of purists, he said, “And they have a philosophy, and they think everyone should have that philosophy.”

On the one hand, said Rothfuss, purism pushes the party toward a “small tent” mindset. On the other hand, watching the purity faction in play helps the left pinpoint its aspirations and how well they might function in real life.

“And that’s also, unfortunately, where all the advocacy is. And I say unfortunately because I don’t think it’s health that we don’t have anyone advocating for moderation,” said Rothfuss. “There’s no passion for moderation.”

Crank voiced a darker view of the purist, or what he called the “extreme” faction in the Democratic Party, saying extremism divides and alienates people.

As an example, “The far left says fracking is bad, we should all ban fracking,” said Crank. “That’s (Sen.) Bernie Sanders’ position. That’s ridiculous.”

People can address potential environmental problems with the practice, he said, “but that’s very effective to produce oil and gas. We need to do that in Wyoming.”

Crank pointed to other extreme stances, such as some pro-choice groups’ support of partial-birth abortions, and some extreme left-versus-right clashes on whether people should have guns at all.

“Those rabid positions drive people apart, lead to conflict in our society and, I think, give us shitty candidates,” said Crank. 

While Wyoming Democrats aren’t filing for divorce, the Republicans are about to do so, said Crank.

He referenced a Monday story by Cowboy State Daily in which a new political action committee, Common Sense Republicans for Wyoming, has 

 on the populist-leaning Republican faction the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The notion that extremism divides people, while collaboration and pragmatism unite people, manifests through Wyoming’s Republican divide, said Crank.

“There’s a divorce going on. They just haven’t filed the paperwork quite yet,” he added.

Prominent Wyoming Democrats say they are not calling for a split in their party due to the growing socialist movement nationally. “Wyoming is not New York City,” so the issues are different, said state Sen. Chris Rothfuss.

Daily Smile: Tuesday, January 21, 2025

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