Originally, the Casper Aquifer Protection Plan (CAPP) was just that – a single plan. The first CAPP was generated by city and county staff, aided by numerous volunteer hours from the city-county Environmental Advisory Committee, a Technical Advisory Subcommittee of local geologists, landowners, lawyers, and other interested members of the public.
The original authors envisioned updating the CAPP every four years, but this vision has fallen prey to limited funding and other priorities. A comprehensive update begun jointly in 2007 ended up with the creation of two CAPPs: one for the City of Laramie developed by a professional consulting firm, and one for Albany County, developed by the County Planning & Zoning Commission.
Each CAPP is implemented through the legal authority of its governing body: county resolution and city ordinance. The city ordinance covers only a small portion of the aquifer; most of the aquifer protection area lies in the county.
Since that time, there have been dozens of “Site-Specific Investigations” (SSI) developed for properties within the City. SSIs are not required by the County for residential subdivisions outside the City, many of which have been approved over the last 10 years.
Although there have been discussions of updating portions of the CAPPs and regulations, e.g. the western boundary of the protection areas, the use of certain types of data, the “Table of Prohibited Uses”, etc., neither City nor County CAPP or regulations have been significantly changed since the 2008 – 2011 revisions
