# Conway Corporation — Project Stratus Production 001 (2026-05-29) [[Conway Corporation]]'s **first Tier-1 document production** in this investigation — the rolling production on FOIA Items 1 (developer correspondence) and 4(c) (capacity-expansion analyses) that the utility promised in its 2026-05-22 [[2026-05 Conway Corporation Interim FOIA Response|interim response]]. Delivered 2026-05-29 by Regulatory and Risk Management Director [[Chris Odom]] as `ConwayCorp_Production_001_2026-05-29.zip` — **26 responsive records (PROD-001…026), ~18.3 MB** — to [[Joshua Dunlap]] in the Conway FOIA thread ([19e41be6d2204d32](https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/19e41be6d2204d32)). It is the utility-side counterpart to the [[2026-05 City of Conway Produces Project Stratus Records|City of Conway's land-use production]] of 2026-05-26, and it opens the cooling-water engineering, the confidentiality architecture, and the early timeline of [[Project Stratus]] to the documentary record. ## What's inside - [[Conway Corporation Project Stratus NDAs]] — the executed [[Conway Corporation]] ↔ [[Black & Veatch]] effluent-engineering Confidentiality Agreement (signed 2025-05-05) and the individual staff Mutual NDAs with the developer-side entity [[Spark Innovations, LLC]] (Zach Gardner, 2025-10-14; Lee Tedford, 2024-08). - [[Project Stratus Utilities Meetings and Site Visit]] — the coordination record from the 2024-06-21 first "Project Stratus Discussion" through the **October 2, 2024 utilities site visit and Tupelo Bayou WWTP tour** (attended by **[[Arkansas Economic Development Commission|AEDC]]'s Raven Johnson**) to the May 2026 Black & Veatch findings-presentation scheduling. - [[Black & Veatch Effluent-Cooling Engineering for Project Stratus]] — the Reimbursement Agreement for the TBWWTP Evaluation, the non-potable water-quality data request, the PFAS Work Order No. 1, and the April 2026 Final Engineering Report transmittal. - [[Tupelo Bayou NPDES Permit and Conway Pretreatment Program]] — NPDES permit AR0051951 (Outfall 001 → Arkansas River), Conway's pretreatment ordinance O-12-08, the utility service-requirement form, and the 2023 drinking-water report. ## Provenance Filed by [[Joshua Dunlap]] on 2026-05-19 to the City of Conway and Conway Corporation (also lodged as City JustFOIA request FOIA-2026-126). Conway Corporation's 2026-05-22 [[2026-05 Conway Corporation Interim FOIA Response|interim response]] reported "no records" for Items 4(a), (b), (d), (e), and placed **Items 1 and 4(c)** under Ark. Code § 25-19-105(b) competitive / utility-security review with rolling production to follow. This production is that rolling production: [[Chris Odom]]'s 2026-05-29 cover email states it "consists of **26 responsive records** identified during Conway Corporation's review to date," with "additional productions [that] may follow." The records carry no separate withholding log; the cover email is a bare transmittal (the substantive content is in the documents themselves). Mapping to the six request items: - **Item 1 (developer correspondence)** — substantially responsive. The utilities-meeting threads, the NDA correspondence, and the Black & Veatch engineering threads are the developer-coordination record, though the developer itself appears only as "the Company." - **Item 4(c) (capacity-expansion analyses)** — the cooling-water/effluent engineering (TBWWTP Evaluation, water-quality panel, Final Engineering Report) is the core 4(c) material; the Final Engineering Report and Rate Analysis memorandum themselves are referenced but **not** included. - **Items 4(a), (b), (d), (e)** — consistent with the interim "no records": no executed service or cooling-water-supply agreement, no Entergy bulk-power correspondence, and **no ratepayer cost-allocation analysis** appears (the Rate Analysis memorandum, which would speak to 4(e), is referenced as forthcoming). ## Key takeaways - **The Conway data-center timeline starts earlier than the corpus knew.** A "Project Stratus Discussion" was accepted by Conway Corporation CEO [[Brett Carroll|Bret Carroll]] on **2024-06-21** — now the earliest dated Stratus reference in the corpus, nine-plus months before the April 1, 2025 public MOU and seven months before the City production's prior-earliest (2025-01-21 EMH&T). Confidential utility coordination ran for the better part of a year pre-vote. - **AEDC was at the table.** [[Raven Johnson]], an AEDC Project Manager, attended the Oct 2, 2024 site visit — the corpus's first Tier-1 placement of AEDC at a Project Stratus working meeting, where the [[2026-05 City of Conway Produces Project Stratus Records|City production]] produced no AEDC correspondence at all. - **The cooling-water scheme is now Tier-1 and engineered.** [[Black & Veatch]] (with earlier [[Garver]] scoping) evaluated Tupelo Bayou treated effluent (NPDES **AR0051951**, Outfall 001 → Arkansas River) as cooling-tower makeup, paid for by the developer under a **Reimbursement Agreement**, with a PFAS workshop and an April 2026 **Final Engineering Report**. See [[Tupelo Bayou Treated-Effluent Cooling]]. - **A new developer-side name surfaces: [[Spark Innovations, LLC]].** Conway Corporation staff signed individual NDAs with "Spark Innovations, LLC" (New York governing law) — distinct from the MOU's "[[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]]" (Delaware). The relationship is unestablished; it is a new lead for [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend|T003]]. - **The cost structure repeats the corpus pattern.** The public utility performs (and is reimbursed for) the feasibility engineering; the executed supply agreement and the ratepayer cost-allocation analysis remain unproduced. The "who pays" question on the Conway project's utility infrastructure is still open on the record. ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Conway Corporation]] — producing custodian; [[Chris Odom]] (Regulatory & Risk Management Director, transmittal); [[Brett Carroll|Bret Carroll]] (CEO); [[Mark Ferguson]] (Water Systems Senior Engineer); [[Erin Brown]] (CFO); [[Brett McDaniel]] (contract review); [[Zach Gardner]] (Environmental Coordinator). Also Lee Tedford, Dale Gottsponer, Stephen Hogan, Trey Lieblong (team), Leslie Guffey (engineering intake). - [[Conway Development Corporation]] / [[Conway Area Chamber of Commerce]] — [[Corey Parks]], [[Jamie Gates]], [[Jenifer Kendrick]] (General Counsel), [[Brad Lacy]], Jack Pillow. - [[Black & Veatch]] — Scott Zotti, John Keller, Anna White, Derek Cambridge. [[Garver]] — Paul Strickland, Dustin Tackett, Sean Scuras. - [[Arkansas Economic Development Commission]] — [[Raven Johnson]]. - [[Spark Innovations, LLC]] — developer-side NDA "Company." [[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]] — MOU developer of record. ## Concepts invoked - [[Project Stratus]] — the Conway data-center codename. - [[Tupelo Bayou Treated-Effluent Cooling]] — the cooling-water supply, blowdown, and pretreatment scheme. ## 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 - [[2026-05 Conway Corporation Interim FOIA Response]] — the 2026-05-22 interim response this production fulfills. - [[2026-05 City of Conway Produces Project Stratus Records]] — the City-side (land-use) production of 2026-05-26. - [[The Conway Data Center Project]] — the project-level synthesis (updated against these Tier-1 anchors). - [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend]] — to which Spark Innovations, LLC is a new input. ## Open questions / follow-ups - **The Black & Veatch Final Engineering Report and Rate Analysis memorandum are not produced** — only transmittals. Both are high-value follow-ons; the Rate Analysis bears on Item 4(e) ratepayer cost allocation. - **Spark Innovations, LLC ↔ Forgelight Ventures, LLC** — the relationship is unestablished; SoS registry search is the next step. - The developer's representatives ("the Company" / "Project Stratus Team") are never named in this production. - AEDC's participation implies AEDC holds responsive Project Stratus records — directly relevant to the outstanding AEDC FOIA.