‘Every family here is sick,‘ say neighbors of Bitcoin mining facility in Texas

Many residents of a Texas town southwest of Dallas, facing health problems allegedly associated with constant noise, don’t seem to have anything good to say about a crypto mining facility run by MARA Holdings.

In a video released Thursday by the nonprofit advocacy organization More Perfect Union, reporter Dan Lieberman spoke to residents of Granbury, Texas, some of whom lived less than a mile from MARA’s 300-megawatt Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility. Many long-term residents and retirees described life as “hell” under the near-constant noise of the mining operation, which lies in an unincorporated area of Hood County.

“It never goes away, headaches never go away,” said one elderly resident on camera, with the sound of the facility easily heard in the background.

MARA mining operation near Granbury, Texas. Source: More Perfect Union

The mining operation, based close to some of the outlying areas of Granbury, initially broke ground in 2022 under Compute North, which filed for bankruptcy later that year. MARA acquired the facility in January 2024.

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“It’s a different type of noise pollution,” said Mandy DeRoche, a deputy managing attorney at the nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice. “It’s not like truck traffic or anything like this. It’s a special noise that’s a low-frequency noise that is coming from these operations, and it is incessant.”

A group of residents who had been facing the noise for months and some for years filed a lawsuit against MARA — then Marathon Digital — in October 2024. The suit alleged some residents suffered “sensory, emotional, psychological, and health impacts” from the BTC mining noise, including exacerbating pre-existing conditions.

According to the More Perfect Union interviews, residents claimed that the conditions have been responsible for hospitalizations, “constant headaches,” and possibly the death of a horse.

Cointelegraph reached out to MARA and Earthjustice for comments, but neither company had responded at the time of publication.

On Wednesday, MARA reported plans to offer up to $1 billion worth of convertible senior notes, a portion of which would be allocated for BTC purchases. The company reportedly held 50,000 BTC, worth about $6 billion at the time of publication.

Will crypto mining impact future US elections?

Months before Texas residents filed the lawsuit against MARA, many crypto mining executives met with then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. The meeting seemed to have contributed to Trump publicly embracing and promoting BTC mining, later including them in campaign promises in a speech at the Bitcoin 2024 conference in Nashville.

“Concerning the Bitcoin, yes,” said one Granbury resident when asked if he regretted voting for Trump in 2024. “I don’t have a problem with the industry. What I have a problem with is [what] it’s doing to people here. I think that’s being ignored.”

The Republican-led Congress under Trump has not passed specific legislation related to Bitcoin mining, but last week moved forward with three bills to address stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, and digital asset market structure.

The president also signed an executive order in March to establish national crypto and BTC stockpiles in the US.

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