In a rural Texas town, the constant hum of a bitcoin mine haunts residents
In a rural Texas town, the constant hum of a bitcoin mine haunts residents
In 2022, a new bitcoin mining facility opened just outside the rural town of Granbury, Texas. Since then, a constant hum has tormented the town’s residents.
“[The mine] is emitting a sort of hum that some people have compared to anywhere from a vacuum to a lawn mower to sitting on a tarmac,” said Andrew Chow, technology correspondent at Time magazine and author of the book, “Cryptomania: Hype, Hope, and the Fall of FTX’s Billion-Dollar Fintech Empire.”
Residents of the town have reported ailments, including tinnitus and cardiovascular issues, that they attribute to the noise coming from the mine.
Chow joined “Marketplace” host Kristin Schwab to discuss his reporting in Granbury, and how the mine is impacting the town’s community. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kristin Schwab: So set this scene and tell us about Granbury, Texas. What is the community like there?
Andrew Chow: Granbury is about an hour’s drive outside from Fort Worth, Texas, and the town is really charming. There is a gas plant that sits about a 15-minute drive south of the town proper. On the gas plant’s lot right now, there’s a new bitcoin mine that was put up in 2022. So, the people who are right in the town, next to the opera house and the restaurants, aren’t really hearing anything, but there are a lot of people who live on the outskirts of town, including right directly across the street from this new bitcoin mine, who are constantly hearing a loud hum. It was switched on in 2022 and seems to be getting louder and louder as its capacity has expanded.
Schwab: How loud are we talking here?
Chow: So, I was with a local constable who was recording the noise with a sound reader he bought off Amazon. He would stand across the street from the mine, and it’s emitting a sort of hum that some people have compared to anywhere from a vacuum to a lawn mower to sitting on a tarmac. So going back to how much noise it actually is, the constable has been recording over 90 decibels basically every time he goes out there, which is not what you’re supposed to be hearing on a 24/7 basis.
Schwab: And this is about more than just that sound or vibration driving you crazy, right? Immediately, some weird things start happening to people in the community.
Chow: Yeah, so it can be a little bit difficult to untangle what are the symptoms coming out of the mine and which are not, but the first symptoms people have been reporting are tinnitus. You know, people have ringing in their ears. They’re getting severe splitting migraines, and then some of the more severe things that they’re reporting are vertigo, dizziness and then heart palpitations and other sort of cardiovascular issues.
Schwab: Let’s take a step back for a second and talk about how bitcoin mining works and why these facilities are so loud.
Chow: You can basically think of bitcoin mines as enormous computer server farms with thousands of computers at each location. They need fans to cool them down. A lot of them are out in places like West Texas, where there’s really no one around for them to bother. But the problem is when they start moving closer to communities, like in Granbury, and the companies aren’t taking precautions to try to mitigate some of this sound.
Schwab: And what did Marathon [the company that now owns the mine] have to say when you reached out to them about the noise level in that community?
Chow: They told the community that they want to be a good neighbor, and they were taking steps to mitigate the noise. That involves replacing the fans, which are the noisy parts, and instead putting the computers in oil, which is called immersion cooling. In terms of potential health impacts, they have not commented on that at all. And right now, they’re sort of moving full-steam ahead in an effort to try to juice the bitcoin mining industry in the U.S. and try to build a lot more rigs. Now, there’s a bitcoin lobby that’s been working really hard in state legislatures all over the country to try to remove bitcoin mines from having to abide by noise ordinances or other zoning laws. So, if it was up to the bitcoin mining industry, they’re trying to put these things everywhere, as many places as they can, with as few regulations as they can.
Schwab: Well, where does that leave the residents in Granbury, Texas? What can they do to try to get this facility to stop emitting so much noise?
Chow: They don’t have many options. The way that Texas state law is written, if you’re outside of city limits, you don’t have the ability to create new noise ordinances. They can try to file a lawsuit, but that would take months or even years to wind through the courts. And the main thing the residents want right now is an injunction for the machines to stop running, because they feel like their lives have been ruined. They can’t sleep anymore. A lot of their bodies seem to be falling apart by having to listen to this thing 24/7.
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