It consists of 6 divisions and since 1992, the Environmental Quality Council (EQC), a separate operating agency of 7 governor-appointed members.
[1] Enforcement covers more than 17.5 million acres of public lands and 40.7 million acres of federal mineral estate, administered by the Bureau of Land Management[4] As of 2012[update], the DEQ's Director has been Todd Parfitt, appointed by Matt Mead, incumbent Republican Governor of Wyoming; from 2003 until 2012 the Director had been John Corra.
As of 2010[update], DEQ had 267 employees located in Sheridan, Lander, Casper, Rock Springs, Pinedale, and headquarters in Cheyenne, with a state budget cut at that time between 5 and 10 percent.
[16] As of 2016[update] Aaron Clark was an environmental consultant for oil and gas development and filed natural resource permits for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)[17] and as of 2015 was former Wyoming Game and Fish Commissioner.
[23] and was the lone dissenter in approving an ammonia production plant in Rock Springs by Simplot, because it was only 30% designed and contained only a single sentence about potential environmental releases.
[27] A much earlier member of the Council under Governor Stan Hathaway was Jackson Hole architect Vince Lee who served for three terms in the late 70s.
[28] In the Upper Green River Basin with parts of Sublette, Lincoln County and Sweetwater County companies with multiple-well developments must place pollution controls from the beginning of operations, while single-well developments only need to install them if they emit more than four tons of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) annually.
[31] The Northern Arapahos and Eastern Shoshone tribes sought "state status" in order to administer air quality monitoring.
In 2013 the EPA ruled on the request and determined the land actually belongs to the Wind River Indian Reservation and has for more than a century, despite a 1905 law opening it to non-tribal members.
In 2013, a DEQ feasibility study estimated that it would cost Wyoming at least $4.5 million and 1o new staff to take over regulation of uranium and thorium mining.
[37] On March 28, 2016 the DEQ assured the federal Office of Surface Mining that Peabody Energy's self-bonding remained adequate.
[38] Before Peabody Energy declared bankruptcy on April 13, it held $1.47 billion in self-bonding liabilities, including $900.5 million in Wyoming alone.
On January 12, 2007 the DEQ water quality division issued a notice of violation; the company settled in August 2007 by promising to participate in the 'Voluntary Remediation Program' and paid a $2,812.50 fine.
[42] In May 2011, Windsor presented a final remedy draft to Clark residents in a public meeting, where residents criticized lack of monitoring private wells and "some expressed frustration with Wyoming state laws that they feel favor industry over personal property rights", and where "county and the state both work together, and they're all extremely pro industry".
[43] One year prior, Windsor Energy Group LLC had dumped at least 200 barrels of fluids from its Bennett Creek site near Clark, with the permission of the property owner and was fined about $5,000.