Daily Cartoon

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

<title>Daily Cartoon 2: Tuesday, May 6, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Tuesday, May 6, 2025

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily reporter, Dale Killingbeck

Dale Killingbeck

Energy

CASPER — Add some Natrona County residents to those in the state concerned about data centers and man camps in their neighborhoods raising the temperature, sucking up groundwater, affecting property values and changing their rural way of life.

Natrona County Commissioners on Tuesday heard from a handful of residents who live on the western border of the county east of Casper. 

They thanked the commissioners for not acting to bypass the state’s industrial siting board process and opt for a planned unit development (PUD) process for the Prometheus Hyperscale project’s plans in the county.

Prometheus Hyperscale last fall announced a project for western Converse County that Natrona County Development Director Sabrina Kemper reiterated Tuesday will stretch across the border.

Kemper said she last met with Prometheus officials earlier this spring. She said the company was interested in whether the county would turn to a PUD to create an industrial park for the parts of the project in Natrona County.

“Since we have zoning in Natrona County, we are able to create an industrial park for purposes such as a data center,” she said. “The power plant and man camp (are) proposed to potentially come to Natrona County.”

Commissioners showed little interest in using a county zoning tool to site the project.

Commissioner Peter Nicolaysen, who said his ranch is across from the proposed Converse County site, asked Kemper if she had an update on the project.

County Attorney Ashley Smith said she had spoken with the company’s attorney in the past week, but the discussion had just centered on whether the county would use a PUD for its portion of the project.

Commissioner Casey Coates said he has little interest in an industrial park for the project.

“I really like the industrial siting process,” he said. “I don’t think our county has the ability to scrutinize them to the level that projects such as data centers require, so for me personally, I don’t think we go down that road.”

Process Still Gives “Seat At The Table”

Nicolaysen said with the state process the county could still have “a seat at the table” in the requirements and decisions made regarding data centers on its lands.

Commissioner Dave North said he could see a benefit either way, but the county did not have enough information about the Prometheus project.

“We need more definitive information as far as what they want to put in Natrona County, where they want to put them and what the controls are going to be,” he said. “I don’t want to be in the same boat that Cheyenne is where they are making these big blanket areas.”

Prometheus founder and CEO Trenton Thornock told 

 that the data center will start with a minimum $500 million investment for an initial 200 megawatts, but could scale up to 1.5 gigawatts in all, with up to 600 employees and an overall economic impact of up to $3.1 billion, based on an economic impact study commissioned by Prometheus Hyperscale for a similar center it’s building in Evanston.

Thornock said the project will actually straddle Natrona and Converse counties, giving both an economic boost. The project has been promoted by the company as one that will boast its own power system using natural gas and also having a closed-loop cooling system designed by the company.

Some residents at Tuesday’s meeting voiced skepticism about the project and believe it will change their way of life.

Kris Hool told the commissioners the company is trying to move too fast and he appreciated their decision not to create a PUD. He said many people would be affected by the project.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Ranch Worries"}]

Resident Sarah Collins told the commission she is a fourth-generation rancher and has an Evansville address, but her septic and well are in Converse County. She said the proposed area for the center is not in the middle of nowhere and that the area has been designated a subdivision.

She worries about the change to an industrial-type area and the environmental impacts.

“It’s not a couple of residences, it’s kids living out there,” Collins said. “We’re talking about traffic on the Glenrock highway. We’re talking about wells and the actual water aquifers. That’s obviously going to affect our aquifers for our livestock business.”

Brad Isner characterized the project as a “travesty” that would cause his property value to plummet and put him “underwater.” He also projected that the structure would raise the temperature in the area by 18 degrees due to “the heat this thing is going to produce.”

He raised questions about the closed-loop cooling system, the sewer system for the proposed man camp, and the “continuous hum” he believes the data center will create.

“They’re going to build a power plant that is twice the size of the one we have but that is five years out,” Isner said. “In the meantime, they are going to have portable generators running enough power to power this structure.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"'Sketchy' Information"}]

Isner compared the size of the data center to “five Walmarts” and noted that should its cooling system fail or other environmental issues arise they could impact Big Muddy Creek.

“They’re going to spend $20 to $30 million and we still don’t have a plan yet,” he said. “We don’t know where it's going to be … everything they told us has been sketchy.”

Betty Mosley told the board she has been riding horses on Lone Star Ranch property with permission for years. She said area residents moved there for the wildlife and views and now the area will be transformed by the proposed data center.

“How can you be so pompous as to think you’re going to improve upon what God has given us?” Mosley asked. “It would just be a sin. And what’s happening to our beautiful state? I don’t understand what we are doing.”

Resident John Oakley told commissioners too many unanswered questions about the data center remain.

“I just hope that you guys and us can get to the bottom of this before any decisions are made,” he said. “There is just too much at stake.”

Prometheus Hyperscale did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Man Camp Prometheus Talking To Board 1 6 17 26

<title>Natrona County Opponents To Data Center Man Camp Call It A 'Travesty' And 'Sin' | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Fearful residents from east Natrona County voiced their opposition Tuesday to a proposed man camp for a Prometheus Hyperscale data center in Converse and Natrona counties. One called the proposal a “travesty” and another described it as "a sin."

Natrona County Opponents To Data Center Man Camp Call It A 'Travesty' And 'Sin'

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's managing editor, Greg Johnson.

Greg Johnson

Crime & Courts

Courts

 multiple times last week in the tiny southern Wyoming town of Baggs had a stockpile of semiautomatic weapon ammunition and was likely planning a mass shooting, the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office reports.

 took bullets to the neck, arm and hip when he confronted the suspect outside his apartment near the southern edge of Baggs at about noon on June 8.

Responding to a report of an active shooter in the area, Burns located the suspect driving in town and conducted a traffic stop at his apartment, the CCSO has reported.

That led to Burns being shot, while the suspect retreated into his apartment, started a fire, then sped away in his car again, according to the CCSO. He was eventually killed in a shootout with law enforcement after crashing his car north of town off state Highway 789.

In the meantime, a pair of nearby Baggs residents 

, likely saving his life, CCSO Sheriff Alex Bakken has previously reported.

Now it’s been revealed that Burns may have stopped a mass shooting that authorities believe had been the suspect’s plan, Bakken says in an update on the investigation put out late Wednesday.

“Thanks to his bravery, (Burns) saved the lives of countless first responders and community members,” Bakken says in the report. “The gunman had stockpiled hundreds of AR-15 magazines in his apartment and, by all appearances, had been prepared to initiate a large-scale act of violence.”

The identity of the suspect isn’t being released pending the completion of an investigation by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, Bakken told Cowboy State Daily in a text message.

As of late last week, Burns remained in critical but stable condition in a Colorado hospital.

Further updates of his condition “will be released at the discretion of the family, a condition which we should all be respectful of,” Bakken says in his Wednesday update.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Careful Who You Call A ‘Victim’"}]

Along with more information about the suspect and what was found in his apartment, Bakken also confirmed that a Carbon County deputy was involved in shooting the gunman after his final chase with law enforcement.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol also reported last week that a trooper involved in that final confrontation was fired at and his patrol vehicle was hit. The trooper wasn’t hurt.

Bakken also called out the massive response from other law enforcement agencies to assist with the active shooter situation that day.

“Numerous agencies from northwest Colorado responded to assist due to their proximity to the incident and the fact that rural law enforcement in Western states is remote, difficult and dangerous,” he said.

“I am incredibly proud of and grateful to all the partner agencies that responded during our time of need,” the sheriff added.

Bakken also bristles at the reporting of an unnamed Colorado news outlet that referred to the suspect as a “victim.”

“The victim in this incident is Sergeant Zachary Burns, a man we are proud to call a member of our team who has served our local community with the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office since 2015,” the sheriff said.

Bakken also again called out the “residents of Baggs who rushed out to render aid to Sergeant Burns (and) all of the community members who have come out in droves to support us.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It all means far more than you will ever know.”"}]

Baggs Burns and apartment 6 17 26

<title>Sheriff Says Baggs Suspect Who Shot Deputy Likely Was Planning Mass Shooting | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The man who shot a deputy in Baggs last week was likely planning a mass shooting, said the Carbon County Sheriff. “The gunman had stockpiled hundreds of AR-15 magazines ... and had been prepared to initiate a large-scale act of violence," he said.

Sheriff Says Baggs Suspect Who Shot Deputy Likely Was Planning Mass Shooting

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

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Executive

As the Pentagon releases more unidentified flying object (UFO) case files, one of the more striking reports stems from U.S. Army officials working 170 miles south of Cheyenne in 2022.

Now the government calls them unidentified anomalous phenomenon (UAP) as the modern term for UFO.

Five U.S. Army service members observed a translucent, milky, shimmering, airborne object over the Cheyenne Mountains in February 2022, says the report.

The sky was clear. The object was potato-shaped with distinct edges and appeared creamy-whitish and opalescent in color, the report says.

Translucent, shimmering slightly, “The object was made up of what can best be described as articulating fish scales or panels that were non-symmetrical, non-overlapping, and irregular shaped,” the report says. “The object itself was perfectly still but each panel on the object shifted in slow waves starting at different points of origin but at the same time.”

[{"type":"text","text":"After about two minutes, whatever it was vanished. "}]

One witness reportedly said it “cloaked” as quickly as a person can turn his head, and that it cast no shadow.

The Department of Defense issued another report on a February 2022 sighting indicating the sun over the mountain “would allow for backscattering of sunlight” to account for such a sighting.

[{"type":"text","text":"No Answers Then, No Answers Now"}]

A Wyoming attorney who still lacks answers for a massive noiseless device he and his dad, who was a federal appeals court judge, spotted 

“It really bears no resemblance to what I saw, to what my father and I experienced,” Rich Barrett told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview. “But it’s interesting.”

Barrett said he doesn’t expect answers for the massive, bright device he recalls seeing with his dad, 10th Circuit Court Judge James Barrett, on state Highway 59 between Wright and Gillette in 1991.

And he doesn’t expect clear answers for whatever the five U.S. Army soldiers saw on Cheyenne Mountain in 2022

“I’m not in the know, to understand the how and why, the release of information, or the timing of it, etc., within the Department of War,” he said.

But the apparent increase in transparency from President Donald Trump’s administration on the UAP topic leaves Barrett hopeful.

“I’d just focus on the fact that there’s more transparency now than there’s ever been, under the Trump administration,” Barrett said. “Transparency is good. Knowledge is power. The more we know, the more helpful that is.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Not The Guy Who Needs To Know"}]

New Jersey Army National Guard Col. David Melendez, who also operates a drone response team for the fire department in New York City, told Cowboy State Daily he’s leaning toward calling the strange object an “experimental vehicle,” but, “I would never rule out an outer-world device because of so many sightings from a myriad of people.”

Even if the object was an experimental U.S. craft coming from the nearby F.E. Warren Base of Cheyenne, said Melendez, the Department of War might not feel the need to disclose that, he said.

“They say (information is released on) a need-to-know basis,” Melendez said. “You might have the highest, top-secret, TSI clearance but (it’s not enough) if you don’t have a need-to-know.”

Anything is possible, but Melendez said he takes the sightings “with, like, a grain of salt.”

[{"type":"text","text":"He said it’s funny that the UAP videos tend to be grainy."}]

“We have these wonderful sensors that can catch someone picking their nose from three miles away, but the unidentified vehicle in front of us, it’s always a grainy picture,” Melendez said.

Some UAP sightings have found explanations years after their initial reporting, when the government unveiled experimental aircraft, he noted.

As for what the administration’s new UAP information dump could mean, Melendez said with a laugh, “I’m not the guy who needs to know.”

Melendez wasn’t as optimistic as Barrett about the government’s capacity for transparency.

“At least they’re, like, not being dismissive of it. They’re trying to have the conversation,” he said. 

But, Melendez added, “Being an information operations guy, there is that marketing … campaign where they try to make it look like there’s transparency and, you know, they’re kind of placating you. They’re giving you, kind of, the answers you want to hear: ‘We’re investigating it, we’ll let you know.’”

A Wyoming lawmaker, Riverton-based Republican Sen. Tim Salazar, 

 military department’s Adjutant Gen. Greg Porter on the 

“I’m asking if you’ve had any incidents of UAPs over your airspace?” Salazar asked at the time.

“For our air space, no. I’m aware of some other ones — near some other federal facilities — that I don’t think in open testimony here I could probably say much about that,” Porter answered.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eight Sheriffs Said …"}]

Salazar’s question came during Porter’s presentation about a bill passed last year giving Gov. Mark Gordon the authority to activate the National Guard if drones encroach upon critical infrastructure.

That followed weeks of mystery drone or flying-object sightings in New Jersey — and in Wyoming. 

 of strange drone-like sightings, or seeing the objects themselves, in a series of January 2025 interviews with Cowboy State Daily.

Citing concerns about conflicts with federal agencies and laws, Gordon 

By December 2025, the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office had gotten so accustomed to sightings of large mystery drones over the Jim Bridger power plant and other areas, the office spokesman called it “the new normal.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The objects haven’t done any harm to date, he added. "}]

“It’s like this phenomenon that continues to happen, but it’s not causing any, you know, issues that we have to deal with — other than the presence of them,” Mower said in December.

If the objects pose an imminent harm at some point, “rest assured … we’ll certainly act accordingly,” he said.

Mower did not immediately respond to a Wednesday voicemail request for an update on the drones.

Potato UFO 1 6 17 26

<title>Pentagon Report Documents Giant Potato-Shaped UFO Over Colorado Springs | Cowboy State Daily</title>

After Wyoming lawmakers grappled with the topic of UFOs last year, the Pentagon released a report of five U.S. Army service members who said they observed a giant translucent airborne potato-shaped UFO over the Cheyenne Mountains in 2022.

Pentagon Report Documents Giant Potato-Shaped UFO Over Colorado Springs

The Wyoming Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a former Casper police officer’s argument that a judge wrongly disregarded his plea agreement when sentencing him to a prison sentence five times longer than the one for which he’d bargained.

This sends a message to all defense attorneys to lock down their clients’ plea agreements in writing, the defendant’s appeal attorney Ryan Semerad told Cowboy State Daily in a Wednesday phone interview.

“Going forward as a defense attorney, you should make it crystal clear, on the record, that when my client is entering a guilty plea to a charge pursuant to a plea agreement, we’re offering that guilty plea directly in exchange for the state’s promises about the outcome of this case,” said Semerad. “That we’re not offering our plea agreements into the air – for nothing.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Gritty Incident First"}]

Michael Scott Hughes, now 32, was still a Casper Police department officer on Aug. 22, 2024, when he grew frantic and suicidal inside his home at the Quail Run apartments complex, court documents say.

So Natrona County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the scene. Hughes’ girlfriend was in the apartment and was reluctant to leave Hughes, who was reportedly making suicidal gestures with guns and making suicidal statements.

Hughes told his girlfriend to leave and when she didn’t, he fired a pistol round into the ceiling of the apartment – so the girlfriend left, telling deputies Hughes was now alone in the apartment, and had been drinking.

Deputies evacuated the other apartments and told Hughes' upstairs neighbor to shelter inside her bathtub before evacuating her and two other people – including her teenage son – from the apartment about two hours later.

The neighbor “stepped on something hard in her living room” on her way out, and later found it was a bullet, shot through the concrete and lodged in the carpet.

The sheriff’s office sent a tactical team and crisis negotiators, who stayed in contact with Hughes until the early morning hours of Aug. 23

Hughes kept drinking and deputies kept evacuating neighbors, the high court’s Wednesday opinion recounts.

The standoff continued that day. Hughes called and texted family, friends, coworkers, and crisis negotiators. He “repeatedly attempted to entice law enforcement to enter the apartment and threatened to kill anyone that entered,” the opinion says.

Law enforcement personnel heard other gunshots. The tactical team sent a drone into the apartment through the broken window but Hughes captured it, damaged it, and threw it outside.

Hughes fired a round through a window and toward the tactical team – hitting no one – that afternoon. The round shot toward an unoccupied playground and another building.

Finally, at 4:15 p.m., Hughes handcuffed himself and let the tactical team arrest him. Investigators found three handguns and three spent shell casings in the apartment.

[{"type":"text","text":"Second, What Happened In Court"}]

Once charged and in court, Hughes pleaded not guilty to five counts of aggravated assault (felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison), one count of felony property destruction (also up to 10 years), and one count of reckless endangering (up to one year in jail).

Two months after the not-guilty plea, Hughes asked for a change of plea hearing.

The prosecutor informed Natrona County District Court Judge Catherine Wilking at that time that Hughes would plead guilty to everything except the property-destruction charge, which the state would drop, and the state would agree to limit its sentencing argument to no more than five years in prison.

That’s because while the state could argue for up to five years’ prison time on each felony, it agreed that these sentences would run concurrently, or simultaneously, the court record shows.

The high court’s Wednesday opinion says prosecutor and defense aired this agreement in court, but it wasn’t put in writing.

Wilking told Hughes he couldn’t withdraw his guilty pleas if she rejected his agreement.

[{"type":"text","text":"Hughes said he understood those conditions."}]

At Hughes’ later sentencing hearing, Wilking heard statements from Hughes' upstairs neighbors and a psychologist who had met with Hughes post-arrest.

She announced she wouldn’t follow the prosecutor’s recommended five-year cap. And she sentenced Hughes to five sets of four- to five-year sentences for the felonies and the maximum one-year sentence for the misdemeanor – for a total of 21 to 26 years in prison.

[{"type":"text","text":"Third, Legal Stuff"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Semerad entered the case to represent Hughes on appeal."}]

The attorney argued to the high court that Wilking understood Hughes’ plea agreement incorrectly, and that its one-count-left-off structure showed Hughes retained the right to withdraw his guilty pleas and go to trial if Wilking rejected the sentencing cap.

“The District Court rejected the plea agreement and sentenced Mr. Hughes to … five times what Mr. Hughes bargained for,” Semerad wrote in Hughes’ appeal brief. “This appeal turns on whether plea agreements are predictable contracts or lottery tickets.”

Semerad argued that the high court should bar trial courts from adding to plea agreements “under the guise of ‘interpretation’” and make those courts explain their reasoning when they reject plea agreements.

The Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion, penned by Justice Robert Jarosh, disagrees with this interpretation.

Firstly, it’s harder for the high court to overturn what Wilking did since Hughes didn’t object to her actions at the time, the opinion says.

The Jarosh opinion also views what Wilking did in an entirely different vein of reasoning than the argument Semerad deployed.

“Mr. Hughes’ second (argument) relies on the premise that the district court rejected, at least in part, the plea agreement during the change of plea hearing. We disagree,” says the opinion. “The district court unequivocally accepted the plea agreement and followed through with its acceptance” by dismissing the property destruction charge and holding her sentence until after the parties argued terms in court.

In the high court’s conclusion, the judge rejected the state’s sentencing recommendation which was nestled within the plea agreement, not the plea agreement as a whole.

Wilking wasn’t required to list her reasons for rejecting the state’s sentencing argument, says the opinion, but the court “nonetheless explained its rationale on the record.”

Wilking had pointed to the severity of crimes, number of victims and “heinous nature of Mr. Hughes’ actions.”

Semerad commented Wednesday, “We strongly disagree with the opinion. We respect the court’s decision, but we strongly disagree.”

“Every sentencing term in a plea agreement is, inherently, something that a defendant is exchanging his guilty plea for.

It’s not window dressing. It’s not, you know, a nice idea. It’s not a gift. It’s an agreement. I’ll give you guilty pleas if you’ll do something the state agreed to do.”

Michael Hughes Casper standoff todd 8 23 241000012153 8 23 24

<title>Supreme Court Upholds 21-To-26-Year Sentence For Casper Cop Who Caused Standoff | Cowboy State Daily</title>

The state Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the 21-to-26-year prison term for a former Casper police officer who shot at other officers during a standoff. He argued a judge wrongly disregarded his plea deal to sentence him to a term five times longer.

Supreme Court Upholds 21-To-26-Year Sentence For Casper Cop Who Caused Standoff

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Economy

It’s a tug-of-war between hope and skepticism in Wyoming when it comes to massive data centers, and that was on full display at the Uinta County Commission meeting in Lyman on Tuesday.

Commissioners met to consider the conditional-use permit for the 1.25-gigawatt Prometheus Hyperscale data center on 506.2 acres owned by the Thornocks,

In a packed meeting house, public comments ran roughly 50-50 for and against the project, as commissioners worked through a long agenda that ranged from mosquito control to scholarships. They saved the data center discussion for last, ultimately following the

 Planning and Zoning Committee’s recommendation

 and approving the permit unanimously. 

That clears a huge hurdle for the massive facility, which will span eight to nine football fields. 

During the hearing, attorney Parker Jackson urged commissioners to seize what he believes is a rare chance for significant growth in the southwest corner of the state, framing the project as a test of Wyoming’s commitment to property rights and free-market principles.

On the other side, data center skeptic and petition organizer Alex Rossi cautioned commissioners not to overlook the state’s long history of booms and busts, arguing that in Wyoming distrust of big promises isn’t cynicism but hard-earned self-defense. 

 as AI-driven data centers and other large-scale projects have come calling. How does a state hungry for a new tax base and better-paying jobs reconcile that need with hard lessons learned from a boom-and-bust past replete with instances of deals gone wrong?

Supporters see Prometheus as exactly the kind of long-term, high-capital investment Wyoming leaders have been trying to attract for years — a project that will anchor roughly 3,800 construction jobs for build-out and then create about 200 permanent technical and maintenance roles, along with generating millions in new tax revenue to support local schools and county services. 

Skeptics, meanwhile, look at the same 1.25-gigawatt, 500-plus-acre complex and see the risk that if markets, technology or corporate priorities change, Uinta County could be left with the footprint of an enormous project and far fewer benefits than advertised.

That’s a dynamic Rossi has already seen play out recently, when Evanston made a deal with a brewery that was to occupy a section of 

At the time, the project was sold to the community as generating $2.8 million over 10 years, Rossi said, but it’s been five years since development and lease agreements were drafted, and there’s still no brewery in the space.

The community, meanwhile, is out $4.8 million for its project rehabbing some of the space in the Roundhouse, giving Rossi the sense that the community is “holding the bag” once again for a project that never materialized as promised.

“My concern is, Prometheus promises all of these things — and I’ve been in the business world for 30 years. I’ve met with many, many public, private-equity people,” he said. “They will say a lot of things, and at the time they kind of mean them, but if their investors come to them or their board comes to them and says, ‘You cut costs here', they’re going to cut costs there.”

That won’t necessarily come with any defense of promises made to the community, Rossi said.

“So my concern is, say something goes a little south for Prometheus,” he said. “And we end up holding the bag again as residents.”

Rossi has organized a petition drive opposing the project, which so far has 86 signatures on change.org and another 55 handwritten signatures from residents worried about the data center and the speed of its approval process. 

Even though the data center has its conditional-use permit, Rossi plans to keep pressing for more transparency and answers, pointing out there are additional items looming, including a man camp to house construction workers.

Prometheus has not asked for any government funding to date. In interviews with Cowboy State Daily, founder Trenton Thornock has repeatedly said the data center on his family’s ranch land will be built with private equity. 

 to answer community questions about the data center, Thornock told a councilwoman he isn’t even asking for any tax abatements.

“I didn’t ask for any handouts,” he said. “The point here is not to extract from the community, it’s to inject economic activity into the community.”

All of the equity will be raised with a bond offering managed by Morgan Stanley, coming from private investors, he said. 

It’s statements like those that have Jackson pulling for Prometheus Hyperscale. He sees it as a generational opportunity for his corner of the state, but he also fears that ignoring property rights and free-market principles would send the wrong message to other businesses.

“What happens when the next project comes along, and maybe it’s something that’s more popular?" he said. “Is it going to be appropriate to apply the same treatment (for Prometheus) to that project down the road? I think we have to have a level playing field, both for property owners and for businesses, so that this doesn’t become an arbitrary process to get things like permits and zoning and all those things you need to be able to improve your property.”

He also said he believes the data center brings more positives than negatives for Uinta County. 

“They’re going to have their own brand-new natural gas power plant, which is a great thing for the Wyoming energy industry,” he said. “And then, just two weeks ago, the president issued an executive order … promoting advanced artificial intelligence innovation and security. So this is something that we can play a part in this kind of broader national conversation about how to be leaders in this industry and also how to do it the right way, both when we’re talking about the infrastructure and the hardware.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Strings Attached"}]

Residents are split over the proposed massive Prometheus Hyperscale data center, which Uinta County commissioners gave a green light Tuesday. “My concern is, Prometheus promises all of these things ... and we end up holding the bag," said a critic.

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