BrightRidge receives Washington County letter demanding Bitcoin mine shut down | WJHL

WASHINGTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) – Electricity and web supplier BrightRidge confirmed Tuesday it has acquired a letter from the Washington County authorities urging compliance over a loud Bitcoin mining facility working on one among its properties.

At a Washington County Commission assembly on Monday evening, commissioners voted unanimously to have Planning Director Angie Charles ship the letter, which describes a zoning violation on the Brightridge property in rural Limestone.

Washington County Commissioner Kent Harris stated the letter urged Brightridge to adjust to zoning legal guidelines as a public utility inside 30 days. He stated the industrial operation of the Bitcoin mine by personal firm Red Dog Technologies is a violation of the property’s zoning.

The fee’s vote permits the county lawyer to pursue litigation if BrightRidge doesn’t comply.

“I feel that it ought to be shut down,” Harris stated. “Litigation is one thing no one likes, but when it involves that, that’s what it’s going to come back to.”

The authentic rezoning request, authorised by the County Commission in Feb. 2020, requested for the 22-acre property to be rezoned from common agricultural land to agriculture enterprise, which meant utility-only land use. BrightRidge proposed the usage of the land for a blockchain knowledge heart.

Harris serves the district the holds the mine. He regretted his vote, saying BrightRidge didn’t inform the fee the complete story.

“All the fee has stated all alongside that we have been misled from the start,” Harris stated. “This was a state of affairs that was type of pulled over our eyes. We thought it was going to be a photo voltaic farm or one thing for BrightRidge.”

Plans for an eventual photo voltaic farm do seem within the rezoning paperwork, however they make no point out of Red Dog Technologies or that any personal entity would function on the grounds.

Last month, Washington County Mayor and Brightridge board member Joe Grandy addressed the fee on the noise particularly. He stated he mine ought to mitigate the noise coming from it or be shut down.

Although the noise just isn’t what threatened the mine legally, Grandy stated efforts to decrease the noise have been too little, too late.

“That’s simply not what the enterprise was that wound up being a part of this mission,” Grandy stated. “The people at Red Dog labored exhausting with the neighbors to attempt to get that noise stage down and be higher neighbors. It was a gradual course of, and whereas they labored at it diligently it most likely wasn’t fairly sufficient.”

Concern with the Bitcoin farm began earlier this yr after residents complained concerning the loud hum it emitted from cooling followers.

Those followers run exhausting as a result of the mine is Brightridge’s primary buyer. No different operation beneath Brightridge consumes as a lot electrical energy because the Red Dog servers.

Brightridge executives have been unavailable to remark because of the potential for litigation.

The Washington County Commission will resolve on additional motion at its subsequent assembly if Brightridge doesn’t adjust to the zoning necessities.

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