Pitching 940-acre data center, Prometheus Hyperscale asks Natrona County to bypass state review

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| Prometheus Hyperscale asks Natrona County to bypass state review for 940-acre data center | Data Center | North America | Prometheus Hyperscale asks Natrona County to bypass state review for 940-acre data center

Natrona County commissioners took no action Tuesday after developers of the proposed Prometheus Hyperscale data center asked them to consider an industrial park zoning designation, which would speed up build time by exempting the $500 million project from state industrial siting review. The request was presented during a workshop portion of the board's meeting at the Natrona County Courthouse, where no formal decisions are made, in front of a packed audience of both supporters and skeptics.

Prometheus founder Trenton Thornock and Build Wyoming Director Eric Schlidt outlined the company's intention to apply for a planned unit development to zone 940 acres south of Interstate 25 on the Falls Ranch property, situated between Casper and Glenrock. Thornock argued that an industrial park designation would allow developers to seek an exemption from the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council while preserving county-level oversight. He described state industrial siting processes as "cumbersome and time-consuming," but emphasized that the exemption would not remove "any applicable environmental or regulatory requirements."

Thornock noted that state agencies such as the Department of Environmental Quality and the Wyoming Department of Transportation would still regulate air, water and road matters. He pointed out that the DEQ's Industrial Siting Division operates with only three employees and that the seven-person siting council meets quarterly, which slows project reviews. "Local control in my opinion is much better than state siting oversight," he told commissioners. "You, the county commissioners and local officials, know your community and their needs better than a state siting council." He added that county-level permitting allows local officials to negotiate directly with developers for road maintenance and infrastructure funding rather than waiting on state formulas from Cheyenne.

Prometheus announced plans in late 2025 to build a 1.5-gigawatt data center campus on Falls Ranch property, owned by Texas billionaire Russell Gordy, north of Interstate 25. Initial plans placed the data center portion in Converse County and the power generators in Natrona County. However, after pushback from neighbors regarding noise, heat and traffic, developers shifted the site to other Falls Ranch property south of the interstate, bringing the entire $500 million campus within Natrona County. The project has also drawn scrutiny due to a prior attempt in Converse County, where commissioners adopted a policy to streamline industrial park designations in April but rescinded it a month later after the Wyoming attorney general found the county lacked statutory authority to create independent exemption procedures outside standard zoning rules.

The proposed facility would rely on a closed-loop cooling design using a blend of water and food-grade propylene glycol. According to Thornock, the blend is used for five to six years before being hauled off by a supplier for recycling, requiring no ongoing water draw or wastewater discharge for cooling. On Friday, Prometheus announced a partnership with Evansville-based Mesa Power Solutions to supply natural gas generators. Previously, the company had said it would deploy Jenbacher generators to power the first phases of development. Either arrangement would allow the center to produce its own power on-site without drawing electricity from the public utility grid. The Friday announcement added to earlier partnerships with Spiritus, which develops carbon-negative power infrastructure, and Casper Carbon Capture, which agreed to provide land and access to permitted underground carbon storage wells.

Schlidt estimated that the data center portion of the project would support roughly 3,000 temporary construction jobs at peak build-out and 150 permanent positions, while generating between $80 million and $115 million in recurring annual property taxes. Thornock said the campus footprint requires 300 acres for on-site power generation and 640 acres for data center halls west of Big Muddy Creek. He told the board that prospective tenants need a clear path toward local permits, warning that delays could push the company to move resources to alternative project sites in Texas. No additional details were provided regarding a site plan, project timeline or potential customers during the meeting.

Prometheus pointed to its work in southwest Wyoming as a model for how it plans to partner with Natrona County. In June, the Uinta County Board of County Commissioners approved a zone change from agricultural to industrial use for the Atlas Industrial Park Subdivision, clearing the way for Prometheus to plan a 640-acre campus on Thornock's family ranch outside Evanston. Thornock told commissioners that Uinta County placed rules directly onto the company's conditional use permits, handling the project through two separate permits that divided rules between power generation and data halls. "These are the kind of good-neighbor things that have very specific conditions around how we have to operate our facility both during the construction phase and later on," he said. Before making decisions on those permits, Uinta County planning staff traveled to the Nova data center in Jordan, Utah, to see closed-loop liquid cooling systems in person. Thornock offered to arrange a similar tour for Natrona County officials. He also noted that the company met with Evanston and Uinta County fire agencies to establish safety rules for on-site backup batteries.

Commissioner Peter Nicolaysen questioned the timing of potential community agreements, noting that Prometheus prefers negotiating community benefit agreements after county permits are finalized. The company faced accusations of bribery in Uinta County when talks ran during the permitting process, Thornock acknowledged. "It seems that the county loses a part of its leverage in those negotiations if things have been fully permitted," Nicolaysen said, "and so I would prefer that those things work in tandem, go through the permitting process, but also be moving forward and making progress on the community benefit agreement." Nicolaysen also pressed developers on road access, utility impacts and cooling fluids. Thornock said primary access for construction and operations would come from a newly constructed Interstate 25 interchange, with Hat Six Road reserved as a secondary emergency route.

Commissioner Dallas Laird asked audience members to raise their hands to show whether they supported or opposed the development, then addressed the developers directly. "Opinions are different than facts," Laird said. "And agreements, in my opinion, if they aren't in writing, they don't mean anything. So, we're going to take a really hard look at this." The commissioners heard more than an hour of public comment from the dozens of residents packing the courtroom. Katherine Dvorak of Casper questioned how initial water use would affect area wells and raised concerns about heat output from generators during hot summers. Sherry Johnson, a lifelong Casper resident, urged commissioners and audience members to drive out to Hat Six Road before supporting rezoning efforts. "Please go take a look at that land because you people need to understand once you allow that behemoth, our landscape will never look the same," she said. "We're talking what, 150 jobs? It's not worth our landscape. We can't get it back. Once it's gone, it's gone." Erika Cook, who lives downstream and downwind from the site, said the natural gas power plant was her primary concern. "Gas generators on this scale would turn our rural prairie into a polluted industrial nightmare," she said. "We would hear and feel the noise from this power facility 24–7, 365 days a year in our home. This is not what we bargained for when we invested our life savings in our peaceful family home." Brad Isner, a neighbor of the project's initial site, said company officials have not provided answers to questions about construction camps, traffic and emergency services.

Supporters, meanwhile, urged the board to keep project reviews under local control rather than handing oversight to state boards in Cheyenne. "What we need to ask is if we have the potential as a community to welcome business development, handle it locally, or do we want to let Cheyenne determine our fate and the impacts and be in charge of the money that comes back to this community?" said Casper resident Tassma Powers. "Because that's what industrial siting does." Keegan Fox of Casper told commissioners that public officials should base decisions on verified facts rather than fear or unverified promises. "A responsible 'yes' doesn't ignore legitimate concerns and it doesn't allow speculation to become a substitute for evidence," he said. Colton Dillion, who lives off Hat Six Road, said the development would sit near his home, but he welcomed the opportunity to attract advanced technology jobs to Wyoming. "Data centers are very efficient businesses in terms of space, in terms of noise, in terms of negative externalities of pollution," he said. "I would really invite you to think about what is the alternative and what are these other opportunities that we could give to our children." Fred Fichtner, chief operations officer for Mesa Power Solutions, said large infrastructure projects help local suppliers and trade workers compete for work, while geologist JoAnn True said Natrona County has experience managing oil fields, pipelines and refineries. She urged commissioners to vet the project while creating jobs that give younger residents reasons to stay in the state.

In their closing comments, Nicolaysen and Chair Jim Milne said the board must balance community concerns with the rights of private landowners. Laird framed the current technology infrastructure race as an issue of national defense, saying domestic computing facilities keep American technology out of foreign hands. "[President Donald] Trump has said it too," the commissioner said. "He says we have a war going on with China and Russia over who's going to take