Wyoming § 35-4-202 - Contamination of streams by sawmills, mining operations, or other manufacturing or industrial works prohibited; penalty; exceptions; special permits.

§ 35-4-202. Contamination of streams by sawmills, mining operations, or other manufacturing or industrial works prohibited; penalty; exceptions; special permits.

Any owner or owners of any sawmill, reduction works, smelter, milling, refining or concentration works, or other manufacturing or industrial works, or any agent, servant or employee thereof, or any person or persons whomsoever, who shall throw or deposit in, or in any way permit to pass into any natural stream or lake within the state, wherein are living fish, any sawdust, chemicals, mill-tailing, or other refuse matter of deleterious substance or poisons of any kind or character whatsoever, that will or may tend to the destruction or driving away from such waters any fish, or kill or destroy any fish therein, or that will or may tend to pollute, contaminate, render impure or unfit for domestic, irrigation, stock or other purposes for which appropriated and used, the waters of any such natural streams or lake, or that will or may tend to obstruct, fill in or otherwise interfere with the flow, channel or condition of such streams, lake or waters, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not less than fifty dollars ($50.00) or more than one hundred dollars ($100.00) or shall be imprisoned in the county jail for not less than thirty (30) days nor more than six (6) months, or by both such fine and imprisonment for each offense; and where any of the foregoing unlawful acts are committed continuously, each of the days upon which committed shall be treated and considered as a separate and distinct offense; provided, that nothing in this section or W.S. 23-3-204 shall apply to the slag from smelter furnaces; provided further, that nothing in this section nor in any of the other laws of this state shall prevent the owner or owners of any mill, concentration works, reduction works or tailings pond or basin used in connection therewith, in this state, now or hereafter to be located upon any natural stream, or lake, from operating said mill, concentration works, reduction works or tailings pond or basin used in connection therewith, where the said owner or owners thereof shall build or cause to be built a dam or dams for settling purposes; provided however that before any dam or dams shall be built for any such purposes, the director of the state department of health, the director of the state game and fish department and the state engineer, acting as a joint committee and each member casting a vote of his department, shall review such plans and according to their findings shall approve or disapprove such plans for preventing any deleterious substances from entering any waters beyond the project area; provided, that whenever a majority of the landowners on any irrigation stream shall petition the director of the state game and fish department to allow sawdust to be put in any stream that does not reach a main body of water or living stream he shall have the power to grant such permits.

Source: official Wyoming text · Last verified 2026-08-27