More than twenty people from Granbury, Texas, have sued Marathon Digital because they say the company’s Bitcoin mining plant makes too much noise for people to live nearby. The case, which was filed on October 4 in Hood County court, says that the mine’s constant noise and vibrations have caused a lot of physical and mental harm to people who live nearby.
The claim says that the constant noise and tremors from the mine have been a bother, making people feel bad and irritable. Some locals say that the constant noise makes them tired, gives them headaches, hearing loss, migraines, tinnitus, and even makes health problems like high blood pressure worse.
The group says the noise is so annoying that they can hear and feel it in their own houses, making it impossible for them to enjoy their properties. They also say that the building’s use of energy has caused power prices to go up and property values in the area to drop.
As an advocate for the residents, Rodrigo CantÃo of the environmental law company Earthjustice said that his clients want the facility to be shut down or action taken right away to reduce the noise pollution. In order to stop the mining operation from making “unreasonable noise” indefinitely, the locals are asking the court to issue a lifelong stay. They are also seeking damages and legal fees to be paid.
The Bitcoin mining center in Granbury was built by Compute North Holdings in April 2022, but it has changed hands several times since then. Before Marathon Digital took over the lease in January 2023, it was run by a competitor, Hut 8 Corp., until April of that year. Residents started to notice the annoying noise in the spring of 2023, which they think is when the management changed.
Marathon Digital has several sites that are home to about 250,000 Bitcoin mining rigs. The Granbury location alone contributes 4.3 ExaHashes per second (EH/s), which is a very large amount. Marathon Digital does not say how many rigs are at the Granbury site, though.
This action is similar to one that happened in 2022 in Hadsel, Norway, where people successfully fought to shut down a Bitcoin mine because it made too much noise. The people who live in Granbury are now looking for the same answer because the Bitcoin mining businesses are still making their lives difficult.
