State officials deny emergency funding for Sheridan County’s Gulch Road project
SHERIDAN — Sheridan Area Water Supply will have to wait until at least February to receive funding for a new water service line.
In May, the SAWS Joint Powers Board approved a Mineral Royalty Grant application to install a new water service line along Gulch Road.
The State Loan and Investment Board — comprised of the state’s top five elected officials — reviewed SAWS’ MRG application during its Oct. 2 meeting.
SAWS applied for emergency MRG funds to help pay for the approximately $564,000 project, which would connect to the city’s new northeast transmission main.
Staff from Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and Wyoming Water Development Office reviewed the emergency funding application and determined the project does not meet standard emergency criteria.
Installing a SAWS water line along Gulch Road would provide eight homes with better quality drinking water. Smells of sulfur have come from Gulch Road residents’ faucets for at least 25 years and have worsened in recent years, homeowner Janet Hoxie previously told The Sheridan Press.
SAWSJPB Chair Christi Haswell urged SLIB to approve SAWS’ application last week.
Tested well water, Haswell said, shows residents’ well water contains 90 milligrams of manganese per liter, while WDEQ’s quality standards are 0.05 milligrams per liter; the well water contains 548 milligrams per liter, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s quality standards are 20 milligrams per liter.
Haswell read from a letter written by a Gulch Road property owner.
“I learned to keep my blonde hair short so the rusty parts could be cut off regularly,” Haswell read. “I learned to never purchase white clothes or linens because it’s impossible to keep them white. I tried chlorine bleach in the laundry, which made the problem even worse.”
The resident currently uses seven filters before cooking or cleaning with the well water but still brings in drinking water.
DEQ Water and Wastewater Section Manager Keenan Hendon’s review of the application stated “the risks posed to the existing residents are not currently an immediate threat,” and existing residences “have been hauling drinking water for over 40 years,” as reasons the project did not qualify as an emergency.
SLIB ultimately rejected emergency funding for the water service line.
“I think this is a horrible situation, I feel for the folks living there, but nothing has happened or nothing has changed to make this an emergency,” State Auditor Kristi Racines said. “... I do want to fund this project and I would be supportive in February.”
SLIB approved the Office of State Lands and Investments Director’s recommendation to defer consideration of the application to the board’s Feb. 5, 2026, meeting for regular — rather than emergency — MRG funding.
This story was published on Oct. 6, 2025.