# 2024-10 AEDC Convenes the Project Pyramid Pre-Permitting Introduction In late October 2024, AEDC Project Manager [[Raven Johnson]] arranged DEQ's first briefing call for the West Memphis project — referred to first as "Project Acorn," then "Project Pyramid" — with DEQ's Jessica Sears and Zachary Carroll (call held 2024-10-28). Johnson's instruction: "The company will provide brief details about the project on the call to help frame the conversation, but they are more interested in discussing the permitting process in a general sense and **have asked that I do not share any specific details at this time**." ## Sources - ([[Project Pyramid USACE Public Notice and Water Quality Track]], `20241028.pdf`, pp. 1–2) ## What happened An AEDC-brokered, anonymity-preserving introduction to the stormwater / land-disturbance / NPDES process, six weeks before the USACE § 404 public notice (2024-12-10) put "data center campus" on the public record. ## Significance Documents the state's economic-development arm managing the company's anonymity inside the environmental-permitting process — the same confidentiality pattern the corpus records at the county assessor and utility levels, here at Tier 1 inside DEQ's own files. Also supplies the "Project Acorn" alias.