With construction on an $800 million, 715,000-square-foot Meta data center underway in south Cheyenne, and similar projects coming soon, farmers in eastern Laramie County worry there won’t be enough water left for them.
However, Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins said that the city has assurances that the Meta data center and forthcoming projects won’t use too much water.
For now, at least, Cheyenne has a comfortable water surplus, he told Cowboy State Daily.
That might change as squabbling continues to heat up over water rights from the Colorado River, upon which the city heavily depends.
Here Comes Meta
Meta, which owns social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced plans for its massive new data center in July 2024.
The company says the center will provide about 100 permanent jobs, as well as up to 1,000 skilled-trade jobs during the construction phase.
It’s scheduled to open in 2027.
Another data center is expected to be built on 100 acres on the east side of Cheyenne, Collins said. Construction there could start either late this year or in early 2026.
Cheyenne could become a hub for data centers with rapid growth expected over the next decade or so, Collins said.
Farmers’ Concerns
Since data centers typically use water to cool their gigantic server networks, some farmers downstream from Cheyenne wonder if their irrigation supplies will be sucked dry.
Louis Ferguson’s family irrigates roughly 1,200 acres for a mixture of grass hay and alfalfa, pulling irrigation water from Crow Creek.
His family’s water rights date back to before Wyoming was a state, and they’re one of the first users downstream from Cheyenne, he told Cowboy State Daily.
Even without competition from data centers, water has been increasingly hard to come by, Ferguson said.
“I’ve converted a lot of my flood irrigation to overhead pivot systems to try to conserve water,” he said, partially because of worry that increasing commercial water use in Cheyenne is putting too much demand on the water system.
“Agriculture is supposed to have a higher priority than industrial water use,” Ferguson said.
He wonders what effect the city selling water to Meta and other companies will have on his family’s farm, as well as others.
“Why not let the farmers sell water to the data center if you’re going to take it from us anyway?” he said. “We’ll sell it for half the price, I guarantee that.
“I think it’s unfortunate that downstream water users are definitely the lowest priority.”
Cody Smith’s family farms farther downstream near the tiny community of Carpenter.
“There’s no corporate farms out here. We’re all multi-generation, family-run farms,” he told Cowboy State Daily.
Like Ferguson, he’s worried about what will happen if water supplies start coming up short.
“If I can’t irrigate, the value of my land will go from $6,000 to $10,000 an acre to about $1,500 an acre,” he said.
Last In Line
Out toward Carpenter, Crow Creek feeds into an aquifer, from which Smith’s family and other farmers and ranchers draw water for irrigation.
When most people think of an aquifer, they picture a huge underground basin of water, Smith said.
The local aquifer isn’t like that. Instead, it’s made of water filling up underground cracks at various depths, he said.
He’s familiar with the system because his family runs a water well service.
The aquifer users in eastern Laramie County are at the end of the water line, Smith said.
Cheyenne takes its share for municipal and commercial use — and most of that gets run through the city’s wastewater treatment plant before going back into Crow Creek.
Irrigators upstream use dams to build up their supply directly from Crow Creek for the growing season, whereas farmers and ranchers in his area typically draw from wells, Smith said.
Farmers sometimes must switch crops, Smith added. When water is plentiful, the main crops are corn and alfalfa. When water is scare, less-thirsty crops, such as sunflowers and whet, are better options.
Much of the corn is used for silage in nearby feedlots, he said. Silage can’t be trucked very far before it starts to lose its value.
No More Water Than An Office Building Needs
Collins said the Meta data center will be equipped with an advanced cooling system, so it won’t be a water hog.
“They’re not going to use any more water than a typical office building of that size,” he said.
Meta plans to use a “closed loop” system, he said. That means it will be able to recycle water back through its internal system, instead of continually pulling more water in.
And Cheyenne’s cool, dry, high-altitude air means there won’t be any need to use water cooling at all much of the year, he added.
Cheyenne’s climate is a big factor that’s attracting data centers, Collins said, adding that Wyoming’s sales tax exemption on servers is another big incentive.
“If you don’t have that sales tax exemption, they (data companies) won’t do your business in your state,” he said.
Black Hills Energy has made great efforts to provide the electricity that data centers need. And there’s also excellent connections to internet cable systems —all the more reason for companies to set up shop in Cheyenne, Collins said.
The city is mindful of its water supply and is demanding that any incoming businesses use high-tech cooling systems that don’t require copious amounts of water, he added.
“We just cannot allow them to use all the water that Cheyenne has,” he said.
Colorado River Supply
Cheyenne has water rights to 22,000 acre-feet per year, Collins said.
An acre-foot is the amount of water that would flood an acre of land to the depth of 1 foot.
Cheyenne now uses roughly 13,000 acre-feet each year, down from 14,000 in 2001, Collins said.
Of the city’s allotted 22,000 acre-feet, 14,000 comes from the Colorado River, albeit indirectly.
It’s an elaborate system that works like this:
• The Little Snake River in Western Wyoming flows into the Yampa River, which flows into the Green River, which in turn flows into the Colorado.
• Water from the Little Snake River is piped from the western side of the Continental Divide through a three-quarter-mile-long tunnel near Encampment. From there, it flows into Hog Park Reservoir, then into the Encampment River and finally into the North Platte River.
• Cheyenne is supplied through Rob Roy Reservoir in the Snowy Range Mountains. Water flows from there into the Douglas drainage and also into the North Platte.
• There is a “gallon-for-gallon” trade between the water coming out of the Little Snake River and that coming out of Rob Roy Reservoir.
Will Colorado River Supply Dry Up?
The future of the Colorado River supply could be in doubt as states along the river squabble over a diminishing supply.
Particularly with the data center industry expected to boom, Cheyenne might have to start looking elsewhere for water, such as buying or even “renting” water rights from other systems, Collins said.
Ferguson and Smith said the possibility of the Colorado River supply line breaking just adds to their worries.
“I’m looking down the road and thinking, ‘Who is going to lose?’ Smith said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
