# Project Pyramid Title V Air Permit (2507-AOP-R0) The **Title V Air Operating Permit `2507-AOP-R0`** issued by the DEQ Office of Air Quality to **[[GROOT LLC]]** for the **Project Pyramid** data center "south of Rainer Road and east of Waverly Road near West Memphis, AR" (**AFIN 18-01011**). Retrieved from the legacy **PDS** system (`https://adeq.state.ar.us/downloads/WebDatabases/PermitsOnline/Air/2507-AOP-R0.pdf`), not SEEK — it is the single most consequential record in the [[deq/seek-pds-data-center-permits-2026-06-08/_overview|DEE-DEQ production]] and the **first Tier-1 quantification of the confirmed-Google West Memphis facility's operational scale**. The companion **Statement of Basis** (`2507-AOP-R0-SOB.pdf`) is in the same folder. > Note: both PDFs carried a font-shifted text layer; the figures below are from a clean OCR pass (`ocr_pdf_fitz.py`, 300 dpi) into `extracted/deq/.../pds-2026-06-08/`. ## What's inside - **`2507-AOP-R0.pdf`** (40 pp) — the final permit: Notice of Final Permitting Decision, Certificate of Service, facility information, emission summary, specific conditions, and appendices (NSPS Subpart IIII for CI engines; NESHAP Subpart ZZZZ for RICE). - **`2507-AOP-R0-SOB.pdf`** (Statement of Basis) — the permit-writer's basis: facility description, compliance/PSD applicability determinations, and the regulatory-applicability matrix. ## Key takeaways - **Permittee and posture.** Permittee is **Groot LLC**; the permit is addressed to **"[[Michael Montfort]], Manager, Groot LLC, 2801 Centerville Road, 1st Floor, PMB 160, Wilmington, DE 19808"** (the CSC registered-agent address) — *"Re: Notice of Final Permitting Decision; Permit No. 2507-AOP-R0"* (`2507-AOP-R0.pdf`, p. 1). It is the **initial permit** for the facility; the application was *"initially received on 9/25/2025"* (p. 2). Reviewing engineer **Shawn Hutchings**; signed by **Demetria Kimbrough, Deputy Director, Office of Air Quality**. - **The facility, in the agency's words.** The Statement of Basis describes it plainly: *"Groot LLC is a data processing, hosting and related services center located south of Rainer Road and east of Waverly Road near West Memphis, AR. The facility operates multiple diesel and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) fuel-fired engines to provide emergency power and support the facility, associated tanks, cooling towers, and roadway emissions"* (`2507-AOP-R0-SOB.pdf`, p. 1; SOB summary line: *"9/25/2025 New 238 Engines and fuel tanks, 60 cooling towers, and roadways"*). - **238 emergency engines (the backup-generator fleet).** The permit authorizes operation of *"up to 238 diesel and hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) fuel-fired emergency engines (SN-01 through SN-05)"* (`2507-AOP-R0.pdf`, p. 4): - **SN-01 = 232 individual Tier 2 engines powering emergency generators** (the data-center backup fleet; per-engine PM 1.8 lb/hr / 5.6 tpy, HAPs 0.04 lb/hr / 0.14 tpy); - **SN-02** = 2 emergency engines powering generators; **SN-03** = 2 emergency fire-pump engines; **SN-04** and **SN-05** = one emergency generator engine each. - Each engine has an associated fuel tank (SN-06, SN-07). - **60 cooling towers + roadway emissions.** **SN-08 = 60 cooling towers** (PM 2.8 lb/hr / 11.9 tpy; PM₁₀ 1.9 lb/hr / 8.3 tpy across all 60); **SN-09 = roadway emissions** (`2507-AOP-R0.pdf`, pp. 4–6). The 60 cooling towers establish **wet/evaporative cooling** at the West Memphis site — though the air permit does **not** name the makeup-water source (the cooling-water-source question stays open; see [[Identifying the Unnamed Cooling-Water Data Centers]]). - **Source classification.** Title V Air Operating Permit (PDS "Air / Title V"); **not a major source for PSD** (SOB §8(b): *"Is the facility categorized as a major source for PSD? N"*; no BACT/modeling). Engines are subject to **NSPS Subpart IIII** (stationary CI ICE) and **NESHAP Subpart ZZZZ** (stationary RICE HAPs); emergency-engine operating-hour limits apply (≤100 hrs/yr maintenance & testing, ≤50 hrs/yr certain non-emergency use). - **No principal named.** The permit and SOB name only Groot LLC (and Montfort as Manager); **Google is not named** as operator or principal. (The site is independently confirmed-Google elsewhere in the corpus via [[Altitude Capital, LLC]] / the [[Google Data Center Water-Use Registration]] — not via this air permit.) ## Why it matters This is the corpus's first hard, Tier-1 measure of how large the Google/Project Pyramid facility is operationally: a **232-unit Tier 2 emergency-generator fleet** and **60 cooling towers** imply a very large hyperscale campus and material water consumption (evaporative cooling). It directly answers FOIA item 1 (air permits + backup-generator emission inventories) for the one Arkansas hyperscale site that has actually reached air-operating-permit stage — and underscores, by contrast, that **AVAIO/Leo has no air permit on file anywhere** as of 2026-06-08. ## People and orgs mentioned - [[GROOT LLC]] (permittee); [[Michael Montfort]] (Manager); [[Google LLC]] (operator of the confirmed-Google site, not named in this permit). - DEQ Office of Air Quality — Shawn Hutchings (reviewing engineer), Demetria Kimbrough (Deputy Director). ## Concepts invoked - [[Identifying the Unnamed Cooling-Water Data Centers]] — the 60 cooling towers confirm wet cooling at Pyramid without naming the water source. ## Cross-references - [[Project Pyramid SEEK Construction-Stormwater Records]] — the same site's water/stormwater records (AFIN 18-01005). - [[Google Data Center Water-Use Registration]] — the alluvial-aquifer wells registered for the West Memphis "Google Data Center" (Dept of Agriculture). - [[2026-06 Arkansas Energy and Environment Produces Data-Center Permit Records]].