Frequently Asked Questions

Albany County Clean Water Advocates are local residents who banded together in 2008 to oppose a plan for a subdivisions and golf course to be located over the Casper Aquifer east of Laramie. At that time the group was known as Citizens for Clean Water.

Renamed a little over a decade later, ACCWA is an inclusive, diverse, non-profit whose mission is to preserve the high quality and abundant supply of water that flows from the Casper Aquifer and the Laramie River, now and for generations to come.

ACCWA promotes its mission through public education and advocacy. ACCWA provides educational materials to elected officials, city and county employees, and the general public. Members analyze regulations protecting our water supplies and advocates for improvements. ACCWA participates in community events such as the Conservation Expo and Freedom Has A Birthday, and organizes field trips to promote hands-on understanding of our water resources.

The Casper Aquifer is the water-bearing portion of the Casper Formation, a stack of sandstone and limestone layers occurring along the margins and in the subsurface of the Laramie Basin. Water from the aquifer discharges naturally in springs at the foot of the Laramie Range, and is extracted by hundreds of public and private wells. The Casper Aquifer and Laramie River together are the sources of drinking water for Laramie and the surrounding area.

The aquifer extends from 50 miles north of Laramie to south of the Colorado border. In the vicinity of Laramie, the Casper Aquifer is present at the surface east of town (Casper Aquifer Protection Area) and beneath other formations under and west of town.

The Casper Aquifer provides about 50% of the drinking water for the Laramie municipal water system (including the South of Laramie water system) in normal years, and up to 100% in drought years. (Treated water from the Laramie River provides the remaining portion of the city supply.) The aquifer is the sole source of drinking water for rural residents east of Laramie who depend on wells. Together, that’s about 86% of the entire population of Albany County. View map >

The City of Laramie and Albany County have designated a portion of the aquifer east of Laramie as the Casper Aquifer Protection Area (CAPA). It extends in a three- to four-mile-wide band along the west flank of the Laramie Range, from the approximate line of 45th Street / Vista Drive to the top of the range, and extends several miles north and south of town. View the map >

This is the “recharge” area for the aquifer, in which rainfall and snowmelt infiltrate the aquifer, carrying along any surface or near-subsurface contaminants. Further west, the aquifer is covered with lower-permeability layers that help to keep out contamination

The majority of the land in the protection area is owned by two entities – Warren Land and Livestock (and subsidiaries) and Mountain Cement. The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the University of Wyoming, and the State of Wyoming also own significant tracts across the recharge area, including lands managed under the Pilot Hill project. The remaining portions, mostly close to the city, are divided among many small land owners. This patchwork of land owners complicates aquifer protection.

The Wyoming Constitution establishes the State (public) as the owner of all waters in Wyoming. Use of that water is licensed to individuals, businesses, towns, etc. for specific purposes through the State Engineer’s Office. Similarly, state statute prohibits “the discharge of any pollution or waste into the waters of the state” without a permit. ACCWA’s view is that property owners may exercise their private rights as long as they do not compromise the public water supply by releasing contaminants into it.

The entire aquifer recharge area lies within Albany County. Only a small percentage of the recharge area lies within the city limits under the jurisdiction of the Laramie City Council. Ninety percent of the recharge area is under the land use authority of the Albany County Commission, making the County Commission the elected body primarily responsible for protection of the groundwater supply for nearly all county residents.

After action by the Wyoming Legislature in 2018 limited the authority of cities to regulate outside their city limits, the Laramie Growth Area Plan was jointly adopted by the City and County in 2023.  An Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) and zoning changes to implement this plan are currently under development and may provide expanded opportunity for city input into development decisions in the surrounding area.

Contamination of our drinking water can come from septic systems, pesticides, herbicides, road/parking runoff, animal waste, fertilizers, hazardous chemicals used/stored by homes and businesses, and “urban runoff”. Transportation of hazardous materials down I-80 are of concern because Telephone Canyon cuts completely through the Casper Aquifer. The Casper Aquifer Protection Plan (CAPP) includes a discussion and inventory of potential contaminants of the Casper Aquifer. View Chapter 5 of CAPP starting on page 128 >

Septic system effluent contains anything poured down the drain in the home and anything excreted by humans, including pharmaceuticals. More than 400 septic systems are located within the Casper Aquifer Protection Area. Over time, the water leaving the septic systems/leach fields reaches the underlying groundwater in the aquifer. View the septic system map >

DEQ regulations in Wyoming (and many other states) and the scientific literature estimate the nitrate concentration leaving the leach field is generally in the 40 to 50 milligrams per liter (mg/l) range, well above the drinking water standard of 10 mg/l. A 2019 study of a typical septic system in Sherman Hills found a nitrate concentration of 55 mg/l beneath the leach field. View the Wenck Study. Currently, because the areas of septic discharge are localized and the aquifer is large, the solution to pollution is dilution.

There are many chemicals and fuel products transported along I-80, which traverses seven miles of the aquifer recharge area from the east side of Laramie to the Lincoln Monument through Telephone Canyon. The Wyoming Department of Transportation has estimated that 25% of the semi-tractors and trailers haul hazardous materials. A spill large enough to escape containment or quick cleanup would infiltrate into the aquifer, and infiltration of storm water runoff carries oil, grease, metal particles from tires and brake pads, road salt, and other automotive fluids into the aquifer.

The Albany County Specific Purpose Tax passed in 2010 allocated $250,000 “for remediation of accident caused pollutants or other potential contaminant sources within the Telephone Canyon portion of I-80.” Some of these funds were used for a study whose recommendations included resurfacing of I-80 to reduce the chance of accidents in icy conditions, and a reduction of the speed limit through Telephone Canyon; these recommendations have been implemented.

Additional funds were used for a 2020 -2021 airborne geophysical survey of the aquifer along I-80 and the Laramie Municipal Wellfields. View the Final Report on AEM >

The 2013 East Laramie Waste Water Feasibility Study evaluated 115 private wells and found that “approximately 65% of the East Grand area wells that were sampled show nitrate contamination, with 4% of the wells exceeding the EPA Drinking Water Standard for nitrates which is 10 mg/l.”

Background nitrate concentrations fall between 0 and 2 mg/l. Recent monitor well data on the east side of Laramie encountered concentrations as high as 8.7 mg/l, but there are very few existing wells specifically designed to monitor aquifer contamination.

Regular sampling of the Laramie municipal supply wells has shown little indication of contamination, although an increasing trend in nitrates was suggested in the 2013 study, and comprehensive sampling for the full suite of possible contaminants is quite rare. Nitrates serve as a marker of septic system effluent because they are durable, and easy and inexpensive to sample for; but it is important to remember that along with the nitrates comes everything else that went down the drain.

ACCWA has concluded that significant aquifer contamination is largely confined to local areas of septic system discharge, but does not accept “barely legal” as an acceptable drinking water quality goal. We recognize the great value of the present, generally high quality of the Casper Aquifer for all community members, and seek to maintain that quality through appropriate preventive management strategies.

The stronger aquifer protection regulations enacted by the majority of Albany County Commissioners in late 2023 provide foundational protection with the establishment of 35-acre minimum lot sizes. The Casper Aquifer Protection Plan’s recommendation for large lot sizes has been present since it was first developed, but this is the first time it has been implemented on the ground.

ACCWA supports implementation of the CAPP recommendation to establish a network of water quality monitoring wells. The existing “network” includes only a couple of purpose-built monitoring wells; the rest are wells developed for other purposes, not located optimally for monitoring.

Research is ongoing as to whether the release of contaminants into the aquifer could be reduced by requiring “advanced” septic systems for new and replacement installations.

ACCWA also supports implementation of another long-standing but yet-to-be-implemented CAPP recommendation, to provide continuous education on best practices to residents of the subdivisions within the aquifer protection area.

Comprehensive aquifer protection requires a combination of non-regulatory and regulatory management strategies, including education, data collection, best management practices for hazardous and waste materials, zoning and land-use regulation, and land acquisition.

Aquifer protection is the responsibility of all the individuals who live and do business on the aquifer, and of the many agencies involved in land use regulation, highway management and emergency response.

Much of the aquifer protection area is privately owned, which is why the CAPP mentions aquifer protection strategies such as property purchase, donation, land exchange, transfer of development rights, and memoranda of agreement which prohibit certain activities. View page 159 of CAPP >

The Pilot Hill Project is a good example of direct public acquisition for aquifer protection and recreation.  It covers approximately 13% of the recharge area.

The connection between development and the potential for aquifer contamination is inescapable. If our community had known 50 years ago what we know now, we would simply have purchased the entire aquifer recharge area and left it as undeveloped open space.

However, ACCWA does not seek to reverse existing development on the aquifer. The ACCWA position is to guide future community development to the ample areas available outside the aquifer protection area through appropriate zoning and future infrastructure construction.

Within the protection area, there should be an emphasis on best management practices for existing development, future residential development should be constrained to low densities, and commercial use should be carefully reviewed for potential impacts.

To date, only two dedicated monitor wells have been located in areas where groundwater flows toward municipal well fields east of Laramie. Groundwater quality is measured in various other wells, but these wells were not constructed for that purpose and likely underestimate contaminant concentration in the most vulnerable zones of the aquifer.

In accordance with the recommendations of the CAPP, the monitoring well network is being expanded in 2024.

Historical local examples of known groundwater contamination in Albany County and Laramie include:

• West Laramie. West Laramie was annexed into the City in the 1960s due to nitrate contamination of its drinking water wells.
• The Laramie Tie Treatment Plan, Fort Sanders Road. The Laramie River was contaminated by chemicals used to treat railroad ties. The Laramie Tie Treatment Plant was a U.S. EPA “Superfund” site that is under continuing containment and remediation. The Laramie River itself has been moved three times to avoid contamination from this site.
• The Third Street PCE Plume Orphan Site. The ongoing remediation is to remove dangerous vapors by vacuuming them from the soil. The site was designated by the Wyoming DEQ in 1998.
• 5th Street PCE Plume. The DEQ has identified a PCE plume along 5th Street, likely attributable to dry cleaning chemicals.
• WR Metals Plant on Fort Sanders Road. There are extreme arsenic concentrations underground at the old WR Metals Plant.
• Remaining groundwater contamination beneath the old Midwest/Standard Oil Refinery & Laramie Yttrium Plant on N. Cedar St. Since the 1920s various companies operating at this location leaked contaminants into the soil and Laramie River. Most of the upper soil area at the site was cleaned up in 2016 and 2017 under management of the Laramie River Conservation District.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has no proactive authority – it can step in only after a water quality standard has been violated. At that point, any possible remediation measures will be difficult and expensive.

Moreover, there is nothing in DEQ regulations requiring assessment of the cumulative impacts of pollutants discharged into the aquifer. For example, each septic system or subdivision is evaluated on an individual basis. In a 2021 letter to the Albany County Commissioners, DEQ reiterated that it does not consider cumulative impacts. As of 2024, there are over 400 septic systems within the aquifer protection area.

People have a tendency not to act unless there is a crisis. Water is not likely to get attention until it doesn’t come out of the faucet. With so many competing demands on the public for basic survival, the general belief that someone else, usually the government, is taking care of the local water supply provides relief, even if that belief is unrealistic.