# Project Leo Engineering and Environmental Permits Four documents satisfying the engineering and environmental conditions of the county's [[2024-12 Pulaski County Conditionally Approves the Project Leo Site Plan|conditional site plan approval]]: the stormwater drainage study, the construction stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP), the federal Clean Water Act permit application, and the county driveway permit. Together they show construction permitting essentially complete and site work underway. ## What's inside - `Avaio Drainage Report update 1-27-26.pdf` — two Kimley-Horn drainage memos: a whole-tract study (2025-07-11) and a Phase 1 update (2026-01-27). - `AVAIO Final SWPPP WITH NOC & STAA 04-02-2026.pdf` — the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan for construction, NPDES General Permit ARR150000, prepared 2026-01-23 (52 pages). - `AVAIO_NWP_PCN_Application.pdf` — Stantec's Pre-Construction Notification supplemental information to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, dated 2025-12-05, USACE file SWL-2025-00064 (15 pages). - `ARNETT CONST. DRIVEWAY PERMIT.pdf` — Pulaski County Road and Bridge Department Driveway Permit No. 1758, issued 2025-12-11 (image-only scan; text recovered by OCR). ## Key takeaways - **Federal Clean Water Act permit — 220 MW across five buildings.** Stantec's filing describes the project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: *"AVAIO plans to develop and construct a commercial data center facility on an approximately 290-acre area... The development includes one 60-megawatt (MW) structure and four 40-MW structures with associated gen buildings for each of the five structures. Additional infrastructure... includes a guard building, parking lots, an electrical substation, and four retention ponds"* (`AVAIO_NWP_PCN_Application.pdf`, p. 1). The permits sought are Nationwide Permit 14 (Linear Transportation) and NWP 39 (Commercial and Institutional Developments) under [[Nationwide Permit|Clean Water Act Section 404]], for **three roadway crossings of streams** in the Fish Creek watershed; permanent stream impact is about 0.138 acre and no mitigation is proposed. The application twice misstates the location as *"Pulaski County, Kentucky"* — a drafting error; the parcels (35R-024.00-023.04, 35R-024.00-023.00, 35R-019.00-068.00) and coordinates are in Arkansas. - **About 167 acres of forest will be cleared.** *"During construction, approximately 167 acres of tree clearing will be conducted during the initial site preparation"* (`AVAIO_NWP_PCN_Application.pdf`, p. 7). Habitat for three bat species (northern long-eared bat, tricolored bat, little brown bat), the monarch butterfly, and MBTA-protected birds was identified; clearing is timed outside bat and bird seasons. An archeological survey (393 shovel tests) found no historic properties affected. - **The site drains to an impaired stream.** The SWPPP records receiving waters as *"Unnamed tributary, then into Fish Creek, then into Lorance Creek, then into Pennington Bayou, then into Arkansas River,"* and answers "Yes" to whether stormwater enters a 303(d)-listed waterbody: **Fish Creek is on Arkansas's 303(d) list of impaired waters, for pH and Critical & Primary Season dissolved oxygen** (`AVAIO Final SWPPP WITH NOC & STAA 04-02-2026.pdf`, p. 2). - **The construction disturbance.** The SWPPP gives a total area of 296.4 acres and a **disturbed area of 129.0 acres**, with the project as *"Clearing & Grubbing, Mass Grading, and Construction of data center buildings and associated site, utility, and drainage improvements"* (`AVAIO Final SWPPP WITH NOC & STAA 04-02-2026.pdf`, p. 1). Three sediment basins are sized for drainage areas of 11.54, 10.86, and 32.46 acres. - **The SWPPP names the operator entity and the contractors.** It is *"Prepared for: ADP Little Rock Data Hub, LLC / AVAIO Capital LLC,"* with the operator given as **[[ADP Little Rock Data Hub, LLC]]** at AVAIO's Stamford address. The responsible-parties table lists [[Tom Nesel]] of AVAIO Capital as Owner's Construction Manager, **Yates Construction (Jeff Meeker)** as the general contractor responsible for SWPPP implementation, and Kimley-Horn (Nate Bachelor) as SWPPP engineer (`AVAIO Final SWPPP WITH NOC & STAA 04-02-2026.pdf`, pp. 1–2). - **The drainage design.** Kimley-Horn's memos describe ~300 acres of industrial development north of 145th Street and west of Fish Creek, draining to Fish Creek and two unnamed tributaries (FCUT1, FCUT2); detention ponds bring post-project peak flows down to pre-project rates, and culverts carry the new private road, "Digital Drive," across the tributaries (`Avaio Drainage Report update 1-27-26.pdf`). - **Construction has started.** Driveway Permit No. 1758 was issued 2025-12-11 to **Ted Arnett of [[Arnett Construction Company]]** (Cabot, AR) for two 24-inch concrete culverts on 145th Street, "COMMERCIAL," with an approximate construction start of 2025-12-10 (`ARNETT CONST. DRIVEWAY PERMIT.pdf`). ## People and orgs mentioned - [[Tom Nesel]] — AVAIO Capital, Owner's Construction Manager. Ted Arnett — [[Arnett Construction Company]], driveway-permit applicant. - [[Stantec]] — prepared the USACE Clean Water Act application. [[Kimley-Horn]] — drainage and SWPPP engineer (Nadia Alderman P.E., Nate Bachelor). Yates Construction (Jeff Meeker) — general contractor. - [[ADP Little Rock Data Hub, LLC]] — NPDES permit operator. [[AVAIO Digital Partners]] / AVAIO Capital LLC — developer. - [[U.S. Army Corps of Engineers]] — Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting authority (Little Rock District). The SWPPP runs under the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality's NPDES general permit ARR150000. ## Concepts invoked - [[Nationwide Permit]] — the Clean Water Act Section 404 mechanism for the three stream crossings. - [[Site plan review]] — these permits satisfy conditions of the county's conditional approval. ## Events documented - [[2025-12 Project Leo Site Construction Begins]] ## Cross-references - These documents discharge the conditions imposed by [[AVAIO Project Leo Site Plan and County Review]] (`Notice of Site Plan Review...`). - The SWPPP NPDES permit (ARR150000) is administered by the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality — the agency to which [[Joshua Dunlap]] has a pending data-center FOIA (see [[2026-05 Department of Agriculture FOIA Response]] for DEQ's appearance in the cooling-water correspondence). ## Open questions / follow-ups - The SWPPP is 52 pages; the substantive site-description, receiving-waters, and responsible-parties sections are quoted above. The remainder is standard best-management-practice text and inspection forms. - No cooling-water source or water-supply utility is named in any of these four documents; the data center's operational (as opposed to construction-stormwater) water demand is not addressed. - The USACE file SWL-2025-00064 and the Arkansas DEQ NPDES coverage are candidates for direct Tier-1 FOIA or docket retrieval.