# DEE-DEQ — Data-Center Air, Water & Stormwater Permit Records (SEEK + PDS, 2026-06-08) The Arkansas **Department of Energy & Environment ("E&E") / Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ)** answered the 2026-06-03 FOIA (air / NPDES / stormwater / cooling-water / source-water / pre-permitting records for Arkansas data centers) on **2026-06-08** — the **first of the four long-silent state-agency FOIAs** (AEDC / APSC / DEE-DEQ / DFA) to respond. The response (Sara White, Legal Support Specialist; live thread `19e8f3501395a49d`) was a **self-service pointer**, not a file delivery: for FOIA items 1–5 and 7–10 it answered **"See Response to 1"** = retrieve the records from two public databases, the **SEEK** system (`https://seek.ee.arkansas.gov`) and the legacy **DEQ Permit Data System (PDS)** (`https://adeq.state.ar.us/home/pdssql/pds.aspx`). The agency gave deep links to the two named facilities and noted "DEQ may not have records of all planned data centers." For **item 6** (DEE/DEQ ↔ developer pre-permitting correspondence), it said any located records "will be sent to you by close of business Thursday, June 11th" — a **supplemental production is pending (≤ 2026-06-11)**, not in this set. The only attachment on the reply was a signature logo (`image001.png`, not a record). These records were therefore **collected by the requester** from SEEK and PDS on 2026-06-08 (download provenance + sha256 in each facility folder's `_manifest.json` and in `_phase0_workdir/inventory_deq-seek-pds-2026-06-08.md`). They are FOIA-directed, agency-held regulatory records — **Tier 1**. None duplicates any prior corpus production (sha256-checked against `raw/county-pulaski/...`; zero byte-identical matches). ## What's inside **56 SEEK documents + the PDS Title V air permit + its Statement of Basis = 58 records**, across three facilities (two AVAIO/Leo + Groot/Pyramid identifiers, plus the Groot air-permit facility): - **`avaio-little-rock-7776390/`** — 18 documents for **ADP Little Rock Data Hub, LLC – AVAIO Little Rock** (SEEK site 7776390, **AFIN 60-06409**, Pulaski County, ~2400 145th Street). **All construction-stormwater / Short-Term Activity Authorization (water) records** — CGP `ARR150000` → coverage **`ARR158986`**, NOIs/modifications, SWPPPs, erosion-control packages, and **STAA-26-047**. See [[AVAIO Little Rock SEEK Construction-Stormwater Records]]. - **`groot-project-pyramid-5189257/`** — 38 documents for **Groot LLC – Project Pyramid** (SEEK site 5189257, **AFIN 18-01005**, Crittenden County, 947 Bollinger Rd). All construction-stormwater records — CGP `ARR150000` → coverages **`ARR158639`** and **`ARR158925`**, three NOI families, SWPPPs, erosion-control plans, the USACE wetland Permit Narrative, SoS/entity-proof attachments, a **Delegation of Authority**, and three DEQ↔developer email chains. See [[Project Pyramid SEEK Construction-Stormwater Records]]. - **`pds-2026-06-08/`** — the **Title V Air Operating Permit `2507-AOP-R0`** for **Groot LLC** (PDS, **AFIN 18-01011**, the air-permit registration of the West Memphis site) and its **Statement of Basis** — the headline record. See [[Project Pyramid Title V Air Permit (2507-AOP-R0)]]. ## Key takeaways 1. **The headline record is the Project Pyramid Title V air permit — the first Tier-1 quantification of the confirmed-Google West Memphis facility's operational scale.** Permit `2507-AOP-R0` (initial permit; application received 9/25/2025) authorizes **up to 238 diesel/HVO-fired emergency engines** (SN-01 is **232 individual Tier 2 emergency-generator engines**, plus 2 more gensets, 2 fire-pump engines, 2 single gensets), **60 cooling towers (SN-08)**, and roadway emissions (SN-09). It was found in **PDS, not SEEK** — exactly the "permits not yet in SEEK" the agency said PDS holds. See [[Project Pyramid Title V Air Permit (2507-AOP-R0)]]. 2. **Wet/evaporative cooling is confirmed at Project Pyramid — but no record names a cooling-water *source* for any site.** The air permit's 60 cooling towers establish evaporative cooling at the Google/West Memphis site (PM only — the air permit does not name the water source). Everything in SEEK for **both AVAIO/Leo and Groot/Pyramid is construction-phase stormwater**; there is **no operational NPDES discharge permit and no cooling-water-withdrawal record** for either. **AVAIO/Leo's cooling-water source remains entirely uncharacterized in DEQ records** — and AVAIO/Leo has **no air permit at all** (not in SEEK, not in PDS). The long-standing unnamed-cooling-source gap is **not closed** by this production. See [[Identifying the Unnamed Cooling-Water Data Centers]]. 3. **The Groot corporate stack is documented at Tier 1.** The Groot **Delegation of Authority** states that **Groot LLC's sole member is [[GDH Holdings Inc.]] (a Delaware corporation)**, whose President/Treasurer/Secretary is **[[Gabor Turschl]]**; it delegates signing authority to **[[David Thomas]], "Attorney… [and] employee of [[Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati]]."** The air permit is addressed to **[[Michael Montfort]], "Manager," at the CSC Wilmington address** (2801 Centerville Road, PMB 160); Montfort signs SEEK submissions as `[email protected]`. So **both recurring shell-officers (Montfort + David Thomas) are confirmed Wilson Sonsini attorneys** — a Tier-1 Arkansas confirmation of the professional-role question the [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend|T003]] / [[D005 Synthesis|D005]] line had left open. 4. **No record names Google (or any hyperscaler) as the beneficial principal of the Conway/Port shells** ([[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]] / [[Willowbend Capital, LLC]] / [[Spark Innovations, LLC]]). The narrative's "Google" references are only Google Maps/Earth location links; GDH Holdings/Turschl sit above **Groot** (already independently confirmed-Google), not the bracketed shells. The **T003/D006 un-bracketing trigger is not met** — restraint holds (see [[D006 Synthesis]]). 5. **Shared vendors across the AVAIO and Google sites.** [[Kimley-Horn]] is the civil engineer on **both** AVAIO Little Rock (Nate Bachelor) and Project Pyramid (Marissa Higgins). GC on Pyramid is **Turner Construction** (Jeff Borgsmiller, `@tcco.com`); on AVAIO Little Rock, **W.G. Yates** (Jeff Meeker). DEQ permit writers: Jorge Rodriguez Peña (Office of Water Quality), Shawn Hutchings (Office of Air Quality, reviewing engineer on the air permit), Demetria Kimbrough (Deputy Director, Office of Air Quality). ## Scoping — what is NOT in SEEK/PDS (responsive negatives) A Site Map Explorer / keyword sweep (terms: AVAIO, Project Leo, Project Pyramid, Groot, "data center," Conway, Stratus, Forgelight, Port, Willowbend, Boar, Pulse, Devco, Gum Springs) plus a search of the full PDS database dump established: - **No SEEK or PDS facility** for the **Conway** project ([[Forgelight Ventures, LLC]] / "Project Stratus"), the **Port of Little Rock** project ([[Willowbend Capital, LLC]] / "Project Boar" — "Boar" returns only "Midway Boar Farm"), or **DC Devco "Project Pulse"** (Gum Springs / Clark County). - **[[Serverfarm]] SF ARK1** (Clarksville / Johnson County) exists in SEEK only as a **"Complaint Site" with zero documents** — no permit footprint. - SEEK's "data center" search returns 8 facilities, all enterprise/colocation (Arvest, Baptist Health, Entergy's own LR data center, J.B. Hunt, Walmart "South Data Center #9401," State DIS West, Tyson ×2) — none a hyperscale investigation target. - The West Memphis site carries **two AFINs**: **18-01005** (SEEK, water/construction-stormwater) and **18-01011** (the air-permit facility, SEEK site 7399771, "South of Rainer Rd / East of Waverly Rd," its Documents tab empty — the air permit lives in PDS). ## Provenance notes - SEEK's `…/ext/ncore/downloadpdf/<id>` endpoint **renders every document to PDF** — the files SEEK labels `.docx`/`.xlsx` (NOC letters, SWPPP checklists) are PDF renders, so the agency did **not** provide native format despite the request's native-format ask. - A few internal duplicates exist (same attachment served from multiple submissions): AVAIO's cert-of-good-standing and signed erosion-control package each appear twice; Groot's entity-search-status copies appear multiple times. These are byte-identical within the production (noted in the inventory), not separate records. - **Correspondence lives in Gmail** (thread `19e8f3501395a49d`); it is cited, not copied into `raw/`. The DEQ↔developer emails *inside* the SEEK submissions (e.g., `correspondence.pdf`) are part of the produced permit record and are retained. ## People and orgs mentioned - [[GDH Holdings Inc.]] — sole member of [[GROOT LLC]] (per the DOA). [[Gabor Turschl]] — its President/Treasurer/Secretary. - [[David Thomas]] and [[Michael Montfort]] — [[Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati]] attorneys; Groot's Authorized Signatory and Manager. - [[GROOT LLC]] (Project Pyramid); [[ADP Little Rock Data Hub, LLC]] (AVAIO Little Rock); [[AVAIO Digital Partners]]; [[Kimley-Horn]] (shared engineer); [[Google LLC]]. ## Concepts invoked - [[Identifying the Unnamed Cooling-Water Data Centers]] — the cooling-source gap this production does not close (but sharpens at Pyramid). - [[Nationwide Permit]] — the USACE §404 track in the Groot Permit Narrative. ## Events documented - [[2026-06 Arkansas Energy and Environment Produces Data-Center Permit Records]] ## Cross-references - [[county-pulaski/development-applications-2026-06-02/_overview|Pulaski County development-applications production]] and [[county-pulaski/project-leo-2026-05-22/_overview|Project Leo production]] — the AVAIO site's county-side record; this production adds the state environmental-permit footprint. - [[assessor-crittenden/project-pyramid-2026-05-21/_overview|Crittenden County Project Pyramid production]] — the Google/Groot site's assessor record. - [[T003 - Shell-LLC Principal Attribution for Forgelight and Willowbend]] — the attribution line this production feeds (professional-role confirmation; no un-bracketing). ## Open questions / follow-ups - **Item-6 supplemental (≤ 2026-06-11):** the DEE/DEQ ↔ AVAIO / Google / Conway / Port developer pre-permitting correspondence — the most investigatively valuable slice — is pending. Collect into `raw/deq/pre-permitting-correspondence-2026-06-11/` when it lands. - **[[GDH Holdings Inc.]] / [[Gabor Turschl]]:** recorded here as documented (sole member / officer of Groot); whether GDH is a common parent across the other shells, and who Gabor Turschl is, are **not** established in this record — a future Secretary-of-State / registry pull, not an inference. - **AVAIO/Leo air & cooling:** AVAIO/Leo's eventual air permit (backup generators) and operational cooling-water source remain unfiled/unnamed; watch SEEK for an air-permit registration and an operational NPDES/withdrawal record. - **[[Serverfarm]] SF ARK1 complaint:** the Clarksville campus's SEEK "Complaint Site" record could warrant a targeted FOIA for the underlying complaint/inspection file.