Residents of a lakeside town in Arkansas aren’t impressed with a new crypto mine that emits intense noise pollution — and some say that it misled locals into believing it would be a data center that would boost jobs and the town’s economy.
A few months ago, residents of Mountain Pine in Garland County were upset to learn that the constant humming noises emitted from the newly-opened crypto mine were there to stay. “It’s just freaking loud. High-pitched fans, that’s what you hear,” said a local, who lives across the street, to ABC7.
Some residents say noise from the fans can be heard four to five miles away. “We’re worrying about property values going down because of it,” one resident said.
Another Mountain Pine local, who lives over a mile away, told reporters that they had been deceived. “Everybody on the city council believed that it was going to be like a data processing center and that it wasn’t going to affect the people,” Brenda Long said.
Arkansas crypto mine has to add soundproof barriers
Mountain Pine City Hall has responded to the mounting complaints. It issued a noise ordinance and ordered the firm running the crypto mine, General Mint Inc. (also known as GMI Computing) to erect soundproof barriers by the end of the year.
“We were promised it would be soundproofed. That’s all we’re asking,” Long added. And while GMI apparently promised to bolster jobs and Mountain Pine’s economy, only one in five workers are residents, ABC7 reports.
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According to GMI’s buzzword-laden website, the firm owns seven ‘data centers’ across North America and Asia Pacific and over 8,000 hosting Bitcoin servers. While it’s not clear that these ‘data centers’ are mining bitcoin, its homepage does say that it offers “Bitcoin mining infrastructure” that implements “a customized yield strategy to ensure optimal profitability and consistent growth.”
While some, like a former medic suffering from PTSD, are tormented by the constant noise from the crypto mine, seasoned locals feel it’s an improvement.
“It’s nothing in comparison to what the lumber mill used to make,” said Bill Brown, a local since the 1980s. “It’s really a non-issue for folks who’ve lived here from the time the lumber mill was here.”
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