Fed up with the noise from a nearby crypto mining plant, North Tonawanda residents are turning to the state Department of Environmental Conservation as they seek to return their neighborhood to its former tranquility.
The noise from the Digihost facility has been polluting the North Tonawanda community for more than two years. Since then, residents said the city has done little, despite countless complaints, to enforce its noise ordinance against Digihost and give relief to those living around the facility.
Joined by climate activists at a news conference Thursday morning, they called on the DEC to deny the air permit renewal for the Digihost plant on Erie Avenue.
Digihost, a Canadian blockchain technology company that mines cryptocurrency, made its presence known in North Tonawanda in early 2022 when it began operating out of a plant formerly owned by Fortistar, which used it to burn natural gas.
The plant’s air permit expired in November 2021.
After initially expressing concern over the arrival of the data mining operation, residents say they are dealing with loud noise emitting from the plant as it runs large fans to cool the supercomputers used to mine bitcoin.
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“If you think we’re frustrated, imagine how the residents living up to a mile from this Digihost plant feel about the noise pollution that has disrupted their lives for more than two years,” Deborah Gondek said as she addressed residents and members of the press.
Gondek is a member of North Tonawanda’s Climate Smart Task Force, a group that works to “address the impact of climate change through education, community building and measurable actions,” according to its mission statement. She stressed that the noise pollution coming from the facility is equally as much a health concern as it is an annoyance, as consistent exposure to high-decibel noises increases the risk of hypertension, stroke and heart attack, along with being a detriment to mental health.
City officials have been unable to force Digihost to quiet down due to their lack of proper equipment and training to enforce their noise ordinance. The Buffalo News reported that certified sound level meters cost between $250 and $500, a calibrator necessary to ensure the equipment is working properly costs another $500, and training to use the equipment could cost about $5,000 for eight to nine officers.
Gondek said denying Digihost an air permit renewal would align with past actions of the DEC, referencing the 2022 denial of a renewal to Greenidge Generation in Dresden due to environmental concerns about the company’s cryptocurrency mining operation near Seneca Lake.
“With this precedent in place, we expect the DEC to be consistent and deny the air permit renewal for Digihost as soon as possible,” she said.
Many communities across New York have not yet adopted the regulations and zoning codes necessary to deal with bitcoin mining, including North Tonawanda. Because of this, Gondek said that she and Mayor Austin Tylec have drafted a two-year cryptocurrency moratorium for the city, which the Common Council will consider during a public hearing next month.
Mark Polito, who moved to North Tonawanda in 2018 and lives about a mile from the Digihost plant, said the sound coming from the plant is constant, and that it “sounds very much like a jet taxiing up to a gate.”
“At night, it gets really loud when most people are trying to sleep,” Polito said. “During the day, it’s loud enough to keep me out of my backyard. I never see my neighbors in their yards either.”
Polito said the noise also penetrates through the walls of his house into his living room, bedroom and bathroom, and often causes his pets to become distressed.
“It’s unlike anything my neighbors and I have heard from any other plant in the area for the 38 years that I’ve been there,” said Kevin O’Connor, who said he lives just 900 feet from the plant. “It’s nasty, it’s constant, and it’s aggravating. I need to talk over it in my own house.”
Multiple residents also expressed concern over the noise potentially causing a dip in their property values, and over harmful environmental impacts of the high levels of energy used in data mining operations. Bridge Rauch, an environmental justice organizer for the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York, said the DEC needs to step up its efforts in lowering emissions by increasing inspection efforts at plants like the one operated by Digihost.
“It’s being used for an industry that is not productive and doesn’t contribute to the local economy,” Rauch said of the plant.
“We strongly encourage every Common Council member to right things this time around,” Gondek said. “Two years is too long for residents to have to bear the brunt of past bad decisions by the North Tonawanda Planning Commission, Common Council and other city officials.”