--- title: Noisy Neighbor: Bitcoin's Hidden Health Cost | TIME description: In 2022, the Wolf Hollow Data Center began bitcoin mining operations in Hood County, Texas. Nearby residents had no idea how dramatically their lives were about to change. canonical: https://time.com/video/lWdzueXo/ og:title: Noisy Neighbor: Bitcoin's Hidden Health Cost og:description: In 2022, the Wolf Hollow Data Center began bitcoin mining operations in Hood County, Texas. Nearby residents had no idea how dramatically their lives were about to change. og:url: https://time.com/video/lWdzueXo/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/lWdzueXo/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Noisy Neighbor: Bitcoin's Hidden Health Cost twitter:description: In 2022, the Wolf Hollow Data Center began bitcoin mining operations in Hood County, Texas. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Noisy Neighbor: Bitcoin's Hidden Health Cost [Watch (HLS stream): Noisy Neighbor: Bitcoin's Hidden Health Cost](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/lWdzueXo.m3u8) (15:33)  _Published 2024-07-03. In 2022, the Wolf Hollow Data Center began bitcoin mining operations in Hood County, Texas. Nearby residents had no idea how dramatically their lives were about to change._ --- Jul 9, 2024 1:49 AM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Bitcoin: To Invest or Not? ](/video/JpLBO0cc/) ### Bitcoin: To Invest or Not? [Bitcoin’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad 2015](/video/hzo6ycL5/) ### Bitcoin’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad 2015 [TIME Explains: What is Bitcoin?](/video/baM6a66m/) ### TIME Explains: What is Bitcoin? --- ## Transcript Bitcoin really does suck. It costs the consumers and the county and the community thousands of dollars. It costs us in our electric bills. It costs us in our health. It costs us in our property values. It costs us dearly. None of the community here knew they were coming. We didn't know that this was going to impact our lives until it came in and did. People might not realize how tender these communities can be. They're intelligent people. They just want to be treated fairly. And they know what a bitcoin mine is. They don't need to know what a bitcoin is to understand that a fan that is cooling off a computer is making noise. Texas has become a major hub for America's bitcoin mining industry, thanks to a surplus of already existing power plants, lax regulations and industry friendly politicians. Texas is on course to become one of the biggest producers of Bitcoin in the world. Cryptos like Catip to politicians here. Senator Tech Cruz Governor Greg Abbott, can't get enough of it. I want the state of Texas to be the single most favorable location on the face of the planet for the block chain industry. Something I really took away when I was researching what was going on with the blockchain is that it was supposed to be a net good. In 2021, Hood County Commissioners approved a new bitcoin mining facility on the lot of a gas plant in Granbury called Wolf Hollow two. Marathon Digital Holdings, one of the largest bitcoin holders in the world, set up shop at the plant in Granbury and then purchased the facility in December 2023. The way that it was sort of brought into into Texas. It was happening very fast, Which is always something that I feel like, you know, journalists, it's a red flag. You know, how is this gonna have? What impact is this gonna have on people? Nobody did any research. There were no environmental impact studies, no impact studies on humans or livestock or anything in this area, they just came in and plugged into the gas mine or the gas power plant and set up, we had no idea. There was nothing done. The Wolf Hollow Data Center, which houses more than 30,000 computers, began running in the summer of 2022. Thousands of fans churn constantly in order to cool the machines. Cheryl Shaton lives just north of the mine across Mitchell Bend Highway. So if you see across the pasture, across the road, those are the bitcoin miners. They've got banks and banks of fans in there. And that's what this noise is from. In our interviews, we use professional microphones to isolate voices from the hum of the nearby mine. Because Sheryl lives so close by, the background noise is most audible here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, the noise became unbearable. The noise got louder and louder. I started contacting people on social media and asking if there were any other problems in this area. Everybody's having the same problems, headaches, dizziness, hearing loss, inability to sleep at night, sounds that pervaded our homes, rattled our walls, and doors and windows. I hardly get in sleep. It is so loud, you know? And when I raised up, I just started just throwing up. I couldn't stop and sick. Oh, my gosh. And is it going to take somebody dying before somebody really does something? And who's gonna be responsible for that? I mean, I'll tell you what. It has been extremely rough for the last three years. Ever since all this noise started. It causes you to just to be at your wits end all the time. People who live near the mind say the noise levels are worse on some days than others. Two months ago or something like that. I passed out and my heart quit on me right there in this house that we're in. And I came back too, my heart come back beating. And so I went to the doctor, and when I got there, my heart quit on me again. And they finally got me back. And the doctor that was there was a specialist who puts in a whole different kind of pacemaker. Well, I didn't have any heart issues before I came here. I don't know. I can't prove that any of this sound system that sound out there has pushed me to the point of being stressed to the max. I can't prove it to you. I don't have any data to give to you, but I just know what's in my body, and I know what I've been through. It's a form of psychological torture to have constant noise exposure. It's been done for years, and it's very effective in those regards. In these people near the Bitcoin mining facility, they could find themselves lack of sleep, depression, anxiety, and there's even been some studies out there that have shown that there's associated with possible cardiac and blood pressure issues. I think these people have a valid complaint, and I think they needs further investigation at least to determine if their problems can be associated directly with it. Time has spoken with more than 40 people who say they've experienced health issues and local doctors who say they now see patients with noise related complaints on a regular basis. A growing field of scientific researchers are measuring the impact of urban and industrial noise on humans. Doctor Munsell, my name is Andrew Chau. I'm a reporter for Time Magazine. I'm calling you because doctor Thomas Munsel is a German scientist who studies how urban noise, mostly from machines, and especially at night can be a debilitating stressor on the heart, brain, and cardiovascular systems. Years. I was out in Granbury a couple of weeks ago talking to the people in the town who are experiencing all sorts of health issues. Do a lot of these track with what your research shows. Yeah, so this is really shocking to me to see that these people are getting exposed to these very high disciplevels. So I think this is to me like torture, especially if this is running all day long, also during the night. When we have very high disciplel, let's say above 90 100 dcibil, then you can get damage of your ear organ. And when you have less high intensity noise, let's say, 50-60 Decibel, then you're getting annoyed, but about the noise and you're developing stress, you get high cortisone levels or sympathetic nervous system activation. And if you have this for a long time, actually, you develop your own cardio vascularisk factors so blood pressure goes up, diabetes develops, and your cholesterol level goes up. There is really an urgent need to stop this noise exposure just to keep the people healthy. Noise regulation is largely a local issue. In New York City, for instance, a noise code theoretically caps restaurant music and air conditioning at 42 decibels. Texas has a cap at 85 decibels. It is the loudest state limit in the nation. So I popped 80 6:00 P.M. I want to make sure we're we're going to get the cars here. Hood County's residents are overwhelmingly conservative and pro business. Constable John Shirley, a former member of the far right militia, the oath keepers, is no stranger to strong opinions about government overreach. But this issue seems to have brought the town together to push for more regulation of big business. This sound meter. I purchased on Amazon. Anybody can purchase one just like it. It's considered a certified sound meter. I spent about six months taking readings around the plant. I picked like like five or six different locations around Wolf Hollow 12 and the Bitcorn Mining facility, and just different times a day, different weather patterns, different temperatures, trying to figure out, was there rhyme or reason to what was going on? I finally reached the point where I had a confidence level that they indeed were potentially violating the law. Those become the main places I was testing for the first six months. The law that I'm operating off of is a disorderly conduct law in Texas, and it absolutely was not written for industrial noise pollution. It was written for a neighbor who makes too much noise with their garage band. Constable Shirley has started writing $500 fines for noise violations against the company. I want to say it's like 35 to 39 somewhere in their citations that I've written them. Marathon has requested a jury trial to overturn this low level misdemeanor. The citations will work their way through the court systems and either a judge or a jury at some point, hopefully, we'll get to hear testimony from people in this community, which to me is, you know, that's going to be the backbone of this part of this issue. Got a normal middle name. P sepane. She lived here before we moved in. She was my dad's. And then after we moved in, she became our dog. She was a healthy dog. And then she started going bald. And we took them to the vet. The vet didn't really give us an answer except she has an auto immune disorder. People were complaining about themselves losing hair. And I was like, Well, if it can happen to a person, I have a dog with no explanation of why she loses her hair. Every once in a while, he gets classy see Continued exposure to low frequency, noise is harmful to the human body and also to animals, as well. Tonight's Town Hall is ongoing, about quarterly town Hall. And ever since this has been on the plate, they've been well attended because there are lots of really pissed off people. I've got a mobile home that my daughter and my grandkids moved out of because my grandson had four ear infections in four months that the doctor couldn't explain why because he never got sick. My mom can hardly walk because of vertigo. So we don't have studies that say that that's affecting it. Well, the surgeon general did it either whenever they put out the warning about cigarettes until people started dying. Why can't be shut down? I guarantee you one. If I go out every break the law one time, second time, I've got to be ale We love the freedom that we have in our counties, particularly to live the life that we want to live and to really have government out of the way. But you don't have liberty as a private property to then harm others. There is a time in a place where your rights are interceding and superseding other peoples, and we can't allow that to happen. Marathon should be coming to the table to help. Why don't they pay to insulate all these people's homes. That would help. Marathon declined an interview with time. In a written statement, a company representative said that the majority of air cooled containers will be replaced by immersion cooling, which is much quieter by the end of 2024. The company has presented a noise mitigation plan, which also includes turning off idle fans and planting vegetation around the mine. A 1.9 million dollar sound wall built in 2023 by the site's previous operators, seems to have made very little difference. Here we are kind of on the tallest part of the sound barrier wall that was erected about a year ago. Some of the noise on this side has been mitigated by the wall. I'm not going to say it's been satisfactory to the people who live here. Electricity bills have skyrocketed in Hood County since the mine moved in. The electrical consumers here in the state of Texas are subsidizing these coin mine operations to go in the state of Texas. In the wintertime, my typical electric bill, and I have gas heat would be $100. My electric bill in the winter now is $300. And everyone is worried about their property values. We would love to move. We can't sell our homes. None of us can sell our homes. Nobody in their right mind would live here. No bitcoin noise. I don't want any bitcoin noise. I don't want to hear any of this. It's nearly impossible to prove that the Bitcoin mine directly caused any of the strange afflictions in Hood County. But as the anecdotes add up, they've only escalated the stressors of a community that now feels constantly under siege. People should care about this story, because it could be you next. If you don't have legislation in your communities, if you don't have state legislation that's protecting you from this, It takes a long time. What's it going to do if it props up in DC? If it's going up in Maryland, if it's going up in Virginia, you could have no escape. If God has put us at at the front leading edge of this issue for some reason, I believe we should be open to the idea of truly finding a solution for our state, definitely for our local area. And if we can in that process, partner with these companies and not go at it adversarially, then, hey, I'm all for that. Not that I'm angry with them and not that I think that they're wrong in being over there with their business that they're running. I think they're wrong in forcing that noise pollution on everybody around them. I think that's wrong. Moving is not on the table because this is the house where I grew up. I want my parents' legacy to continue to live through this house, and the goal is to leave it to one of our children so that they have a great place for their future children. We don't want huge monetary settlements. We don't want to be relocated. We just want to live in our homes in peace. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Noisy Neighbor: Bitcoin's Hidden Health Cost","description":"In 2022, the Wolf Hollow Data Center began bitcoin mining operations in Hood County, Texas. Nearby residents had no idea how dramatically their lives were about to change. 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