 - The Wyoming Legislature’s Select Water Committee approved a bill draft last week that would fund a statewide study of wastewater and stormwater infrastructure in Wyoming cities, towns, and counties.){kind=link}
(Casper, WY) – The Wyoming Legislature’s Select Water Committee approved a bill draft last week that would fund a statewide study of wastewater and stormwater infrastructure in Wyoming cities, towns, and counties.
Wyoming Rep. Lloyd Larsen, R-Lander, brought the idea to the legislative committee earlier this year, explaining that the proposed study would help clarify the state’s role in supporting local government infrastructure improvements by evaluating the current condition of those assets.
Asset management
Once the proposed study is complete, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality Water Quality Division Administrator Jennifer Zygmunt said each community involved would be equipped with an online asset management plan, complete with a spatial representation of their wastewater and stormwater infrastructure and information about the condition of each component.
“It’s a much-needed tool to help our communities understand what they have and then plan, in the short term and the long term, to maintain and replace that infrastructure,” Zygmunt said.
Currently, she said, that information is not available to many communities in the state – especially smaller towns that “just don’t have the economies of scale to support infrastructure projects and the costs that are needed to maintain and replace infrastructure over time.”
Hudson is one of those towns, Mayor Sherry Oler said during last week’s meeting, outlining about $7 million in needed water and sewer infrastructure improvements facing the 400-person community.
Those upgrades need to happen “sooner rather than later,” Oler said, “because obviously everybody wants to have good water to drink, (and) they want to be able to flush their toilets.”
“So, I applaud you guys for doing this (study),” Oler said. “I urge you to support (the bill). Small towns like the Town of Hudson desperately need it.”
The asset management plans will also help state agencies prioritize funding requests for local infrastructure projects by making it easier to differentiate between community “needs and wants,” Office of State Lands and Investments State Revolving Fund Program Manager Shawn King said, noting that the software will identify “critical assets” within local system and estimate when those components need to be replaced.
“I think that’s one of the things (that) is going to be beneficial for us, and I think will be beneficial for the state,” he said.
Beth Blackwell, who previously worked as the OSLI Grants and Loans Manager but now serves as the Grants and Loans Specialist for the City of Newcastle, agreed that, in her previous position, it was often difficult to determine whether a funding request represented “a want over a need.”
“I can’t tell you how important this bill is and what a huge difference it will make – to not just our communities, but to the state agencies who are responsible for awarding funds,” she said.
The bill draft allocates $8 million to OSLI from the Strategic Investments and Projects Account to cover any expenditures needed to conduct the study through June of 2030.
Zygmunt said funding is already in place to support the drinking water portion of the statewide assessment.
The bill draft will now go to the Wyoming Legislature for further consideration during the upcoming 2026 Budget Session.