I asked Wyoming DEQ for its records on Site Layer 4. It sent two releases: eight emails on Sept 16 and a portfolio of 54 email PDFs on Sept 30. Then it closed the request. The records show the developer preparing for an air permit, but the biggest question is still open: which state permitting route the project will take.
This is the first records diary on State 44. A diary follows one public records request from start to finish: what I asked for, what came back and when, and what’s still missing. I’ll update it as new records arrive, and I’ll leave every earlier entry in place with its date.
Why this request matters: the state permitting route decides which protections apply. That includes a public hearing, an impact review, impact-assistance funding, and a State Engineer review of water use at 800 acre-feet or more a year. The county can’t recreate those protections on its own. (State oversight)
What I asked for
I filed request 26-866 through the Wyoming DEQ public records portal on Sept 15, 2026.
I asked for all DEQ records dated Jan 1, 2025 through the date of the search about Site Layer 4, LLC; Granite Renewables; Ian Marcus; the proposed data-center and energy campus near Wheatland; and two Platte County parcels (23650410000300 and 24653210001500). I asked for four kinds of records:
- Pre-application inquiries, meeting records, correspondence, presentations and memos
- Any Industrial Siting jurisdiction request, discussion or determination
- Any application, whether submitted, draft, pending, withdrawn or proposed, for industrial siting, air, water, waste or related infrastructure
- Other project communications
I asked for electronic copies with attachments, releases on a rolling basis, an estimate before any charge over $50, and the legal reason for anything withheld.
Anyone can file a request like this. The last section shows how.
The log so far
Newest first. Each entry is a date something happened with the request.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Oct 3, 2026 | Rechecked the request page. It’s still access-restricted. My saved copies of the releases are still available on State 44. |
| Sept 30, 2026 | At 9:18 a.m., DEQ released “26-866 Emails Final.pdf,” which it called the “final remaining emails within your search.” It’s a PDF portfolio of 54 email PDFs. DEQ marked the request closed a minute later. |
| Sept 20, 2026 | Went back to the request page and found it access-restricted. |
| Sept 17, 2026 | My follow-up date passed. It was my own reminder, not an agency deadline. |
| Sept 16, 2026 | DEQ released eight emails as PDFs, 212 pages in all. The notice said all responsive documents had been released. A separate status message that day said the Industrial Siting Division had finished, and other divisions were still reviewing. (Read the message) |
| Sept 15, 2026 | DEQ received request 26-866 through its online portal. |
What came back
The first release shows early coordination between the developer and DEQ. The second goes further: it shows the developer preparing an air permit, and DEQ reviewing that work. Neither includes a filed permit application or a permit decision. Each item carries a label for what kind of evidence it is.
| Record | What it shows | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Email 1 (2 pages) | On Feb 18, the applicant’s consultant described the project, its parts, a cooling-water assumption and a plan to apply for an Industrial Siting permit. | APPLICANT STATEMENT |
| Email 8 | Air and siting introductions, consultant estimates and meeting scheduling, pp. 1–9. A Feb 11 air statement is on p. 2. From p. 10 on, it’s DEQ’s standard guidance material, not anything specific to Site Layer 4. | APPLICANT STATEMENT + DOCUMENTED |
| Emails 2–7 | Calendar invitations that repeat the project description and show when meetings were scheduled. | DOCUMENTED |
| Sept 16 status message | The developer met DEQ staff at an all-divisions meeting on March 11, 2026, and had a pre-jurisdiction meeting with the Industrial Siting Division on May 13. As of Sept 16, there had been no official jurisdictional meeting. | DOCUMENTED (as of Sept 16) |
| Record | What it shows | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Generation plan | About 1,000 megawatts of gas generation from three GE 7HA.02 turbines, potentially running all 8,760 hours of the year, with planned emission controls. | APPLICANT STATEMENT |
| Preliminary emissions inventory | The developer’s early estimate of what the turbines would emit. These are estimates, not measured emissions. | APPLICANT STATEMENT |
| Air-modeling protocols (May) | The developer’s plans for modeling air-quality effects nearby and on protected areas farther away. | APPLICANT STATEMENT |
| DEQ review letters (June) and NO2 method acceptance (July) | DEQ reviewed the modeling plans. In July it accepted the method for modeling nitrogen dioxide. Accepting a method isn’t approving a permit. | DOCUMENTED |
| Nearby-source spreadsheet and weather data | Inputs for the air modeling: other emission sources in the area, and hourly weather data from 2020 to 2024. They don’t include modeling results. | DOCUMENTED |
| Three meeting acceptances | Calendar replies with no attachments. | DOCUMENTED |
On water, the state correspondence describes no more than 800 acre-feet a year. The applicant’s June 2026 county filing says less than 15 acre-feet a year. The records don’t say whether these describe the same facilities, so they may cover different scopes. (Water)
What I couldn’t find
DEQ closed the request, but closing it doesn’t prove every record I asked for was found or released. A missing record isn’t proof that it doesn’t exist, or that DEQ did anything wrong. These items just weren’t in either release.
- A filed Industrial Siting application. The February email says the developer intended to apply. Nothing in either release shows that it did.
- A jurisdictional determination. None was in either release.
- An exemption request. None appears. Two other projects, BFC Power and Cheyenne Power Hub, received exemption letters in November 2025. That doesn’t tell us anything about Site Layer 4.
- Final air-modeling results. The releases include the modeling plans and the weather inputs, but not the modeled pollution levels.
- Meeting notes and other non-email records. The second release was all emails. I can’t tell whether DEQ searched for records in my other categories.
- A full water budget, including what each water figure covers.
- The final search terms and cutoff date DEQ used.
Read them yourself, and what’s next
The first release’s eight PDFs and a ZIP of them are on the Original records page, kept just as I received them.
File your own request
Go to wydeq.nextrequest.com, make an account, and describe the records you want. Name the project, a date range and the kinds of records you’re after, like emails, meeting notes or applications. Specific requests usually come back faster.