# Project Stratus Utilities Meetings and Site Visit The coordination record between [[Conway Corporation]], the [[Conway Development Corporation]] economic-development team, and the data-center developer ("the Company") on [[Project Stratus]] utility service — from the first "Project Stratus Discussion" calendar invite (2024-06-21) through the **October 2, 2024 utilities site visit** and the May 2026 scheduling of a Black & Veatch findings presentation. These records push the **earliest dated Project Stratus reference in the entire corpus back to 2024-06-21** — about nine months before the April 1, 2025 public Council MOU — and place **[[Arkansas Economic Development Commission|AEDC]]** at the site visit, a direct Tier-1 link the City of Conway production never produced. ## What's inside - `PROD-007_RE Project Stratus Site Visit Utilities Meeting.eml` and `PROD-009_…RE_ Project Stratus Site Visit Utilities Meeting.msg` — [[Corey Parks]]'s 2024-09/10 thread organizing the **October 2, 2024 site visit**. The agenda: "9:00 Utility Introduction / 9:15 **Medium Voltage Discussion** / 10:00 **Water, Wastewater, and Cooling Water Blowdown Discussion** / 11:30 Working Lunch / **Tupelo Bayou Wastewater Treatment Facility Tour**." Distribution carried an NDA gate: "Please share with any additional folks who need to be involved once they've signed the required NDA." - `PROD-008_Project Stratus Detailed Agenda 10.2.24.pdf` and its duplicate `PROD-010` — the formal one-page agenda. Names the working-lunch / TBWWTP-tour attendees: "**Project Stratus Team**; [[Jamie Gates]] – Executive Vice President, [[Conway Development Corporation]]; [[Jenifer Kendrick]] – **General Counsel, Conway Development Corporation**; Paul Strickland – Sr. Project Manager (Arkansas Water Team), [[Garver]]; **Raven Johnson – Project Manager, [[Arkansas Economic Development Commission]]**." - `PROD-011_…Water & Wastewater Questions - Project Stratus.msg` — Paul Strickland ([[Garver]]) to Corey Parks, 2024-10-01, the engineering question set for "the company" on cooling-tower water supply and blowdown (constituent limits; disinfection; **blowdown volume/frequency/flow**; "the corrosion inhibitor **SD2535**"; treatability/toxicity/UVT tests; and "the company's stance on having its own treatment and **NPDES discharge permit to the Arkansas River**"). - `PROD-005_Email connect.eml` / `PROD-006_Re Email connect.eml` — 2026-04-08 "email connect" between **Anna White, Director, Infrastructure Advisory, [[Black & Veatch]]** and **[[Erin Brown]], CPA, Chief Financial Officer, Conway Corporation** — the finance-side channel for the engineering engagement. - `PROD-018_…Project Stratus - presentation to Company.msg` — [[Mark Ferguson]] to Black & Veatch (Scott Zotti) and [[Jamie Gates]], 2026-05-12 to 2026-05-15, scheduling "a subsequent meeting for **Black & Veatch to present the findings of the draft report**" to "the Company" after "our meeting with the Company this afternoon." - `PROD-019…022, PROD-024` — five Outlook meeting-response items (Accepted/Declined) for "Project Stratus Discussion 29," "Pre-Site Visit Working Meeting 45/47," and "Site Visit Utilities Meeting 46/48." The earliest, `PROD-019` ("Accepted: Project Stratus Discussion"), is **[[Brett Carroll|Bret Carroll]] → [[Brad Lacy]], 2024-06-21** — the corpus's earliest dated Stratus artifact. - `PROD-004_Project Stratus Close Site Map - Conway, Arkansas.pdf` — a one-page site-location map (image-only; minimal extractable text). ## Key takeaways - **Earliest Stratus reference now 2024-06-21.** The "Project Stratus Discussion" accepted by Conway Corporation CEO [[Brett Carroll|Bret Carroll]] on 2024-06-21 predates the previous earliest corpus reference (the City production's 2025-01-21 EMH&T stormwater email) by seven months, and the April 1, 2025 public MOU by over nine months. Utility coordination on a confidential 1 GW project ran for the better part of a year before any public vote. - **AEDC was physically in the room.** The Oct 2, 2024 agenda lists **Raven Johnson, Project Manager, Arkansas Economic Development Commission**, among the TBWWTP-tour attendees. The [[2026-05 City of Conway Produces Project Stratus Records|City of Conway production]] produced **no** AEDC correspondence (an Item-5 gap); this utility record is the corpus's first Tier-1 placement of an AEDC officer at a Project Stratus working meeting, and a marker for the still-outstanding AEDC FOIA. See [[Raven Johnson]]. - **The cooling-water question was scoped early and concretely.** As early as October 2024, [[Garver]] (Paul Strickland, P.E., "Arkansas Water Team") was pressing the developer on blowdown volume, frequency, the corrosion inhibitor SD2535, and "the company's stance on having its own treatment and NPDES discharge permit to the Arkansas River" — the same Arkansas River outfall that the [[Tupelo Bayou Treated-Effluent Cooling|TBWWTP NPDES permit]] (AR0051951) governs. - **Two engineering firms appear.** [[Garver]] (Strickland; Dustin Tackett; Sean Scuras) ran the early 2024 water-and-wastewater scoping; [[Black & Veatch]] (Zotti; Keller; White; Cambridge) carried the formal 2025–2026 effluent evaluation and Final Engineering Report (see [[Black & Veatch Effluent-Cooling Engineering for Project Stratus]]). - **The developer is referred to only as "the Company."** Across every email the developer is "the Company" / "the company"; the named human counterparties are all Conway-side (CDC, Conway Corp) or vendor-side (Garver, Black & Veatch, AEDC). No email names a Forgelight or Spark principal. ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Corey Parks]] — Chief Economic Development Officer, [[Conway Development Corporation]]; convened the site visit and utility coordination. - [[Jamie Gates]] — Executive Vice President, Conway Development Corporation. - [[Jenifer Kendrick]] — General Counsel, Conway Development Corporation (named on the Oct 2 2024 agenda). - [[Mark Ferguson]] — Conway Corporation Water Systems Senior Engineer, P.E.; lead utility coordinator from 2025 on. - [[Brett Carroll|Bret Carroll]] — Conway Corporation CEO; accepted the 2024-06-21 Project Stratus Discussion. - [[Erin Brown]] — Conway Corporation Chief Financial Officer, CPA. - [[Brad Lacy]] — Conway Area Chamber of Commerce. Conway Corporation team also CC'd across the thread: Brett McDaniel ([[Brett McDaniel]]), Dale Gottsponer, Lee Tedford, Stephen Hogan, Trey Lieblong, Jack Pillow (CDC). - [[Raven Johnson]] — Project Manager, [[Arkansas Economic Development Commission]] (Oct 2 2024 site-visit attendee). - [[Garver]] — Paul Strickland, P.E. (Sr. PM, Arkansas Water Team); Dustin Tackett; Sean Scuras. - [[Black & Veatch]] — Anna White (Director, Infrastructure Advisory); Scott Zotti, P.E. ## Concepts invoked - [[Project Stratus]] — the project codename. - [[Tupelo Bayou Treated-Effluent Cooling]] — the cooling-water supply and blowdown subject of the meetings. ## Events documented - [[2024-10 Project Stratus Utilities Site Visit]] — the October 2, 2024 site visit and TBWWTP tour. - [[2026-05 Conway Corporation Produces Project Stratus Records]] — this production. ## Cross-references - [[Conway Corporation Project Stratus NDAs]] — the NDA gate referenced in the site-visit invites. - [[Black & Veatch Effluent-Cooling Engineering for Project Stratus]] — the engineering that flowed from the site visit. - [[2026-05 City of Conway Produces Project Stratus Records]] — the City-side production, which contained no AEDC correspondence (this record names AEDC's Raven Johnson at the site visit). - [[The Conway Data Center Project]] — project-level synthesis. ## Open questions / follow-ups - The "Project Stratus Team" who toured the TBWWTP on Oct 2, 2024 are unnamed in the agenda — the developer's representatives are not identified. Who attended on the Company's behalf is not in this production. - AEDC's Raven Johnson's participation implies AEDC holds Project Stratus site-coordination records — directly responsive to the still-outstanding AEDC FOIA. - The Garver-to-Black & Veatch transition (early scoping vs. formal evaluation) is visible but the scope split between the two firms is not documented.