Texas shouldn’t be crypto Wild West

A fight between Bitcoin miners and residents near Granbury may be a harbinger of many more conflicts if crypto mining continues to enjoy unregulated growth in Texas.

Time reported last week on several Hood County residents who say they have experienced health problems, including hearing loss, vertigo and even cardiac episodes, from the noise produced day and night by a nearby Bitcoin mine. Cooling fans at the mine can measure decibels between a lawnmower and a chainsaw, according to Hood County Constable John Shirley.

Shirley has fined the mine multiple times totaling $17,500 and counting. But that’s a drop in the bucket for the mine’s owner, Marathon Digital Holdings, which earned $165 million in revenue during the first quarter of this year, Time reported.

And Marathon is fighting those charges, saying Shirley’s readings were erroneous and that their own noise readings, which have not been released publicly, show that the noise is within legal limits.

On Wednesday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that the manager of the plant was found not guilty on 12 counts of noise violations by a Tarrant County jury. According to Hood County attorney Matt Mills, who represented residents, there’s no debate about whether the noise is loud. In fact, Marathon has acknowledged it and promised to pursue mitigation efforts such as expanding a noise wall and converting the mine’s cooling system to fluid rather than fans. The case against the plant manager fell through over whether he was the party to blame, rather than the company itself, Mills said.

The bar is set pretty low here. State law says “a noise is presumed to be unreasonable if the noise exceeds a decibel level of 85.” That’s about the sound of a hair dryer. No one would want to live with that in their ears round the clock. The European Environmental Agency says noise levels above 55 decibels are harmful.

Noise is not the only way cryptocurrency miners are having trouble being good neighbors. The industry requires huge amounts of electricity. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas has testified that crypto miners and data centers will account for half of the growth of Texas energy demand in the next six years.

If two things are in short supply these days, they are energy and quiet. The Legislature needs to set some guardrails here. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was right when he tweeted in June, “We want data centers, but it can’t be the Wild Wild West.”

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